205 



RUSKIN, JOHN. 



RUSKJN, JOHN. 



2C6 



he was a gentleman-commoner of Christchurch. He carried off tlie 

 Newdigate prize in 1839 (for an English poem, 'Salsette and Ele- 

 phanta'), and graduated double fourth class in 1842. He had how- 

 ever given more attention to the study of art than to eit her letters or 

 mathematics, and he had been assisted in his studies by some of the 

 best water-colour painters of the day. Prout, Copley Fielding, and 

 Harding are mentioned as his teachers in landscape-painting, and he 

 had tested his acquirements in continental travel. But his admi- 

 ration had chiefly centred on Turner, and, conceiving that the merits 

 of that great painter were overlooked or misrepresented by certain 

 critics, he commenced writing a letter to the editor of a review, 

 "reprobating the matter and style of those critiques, and pointing 

 out their perilous tendency." The letter however soon grew into a 

 something which its author " scarcely knew whether to announce as 



an essay on landscape-painting, or as a critique on particular 



works," and which his readers have scarcely yet made up their minds 

 how accurately to specify. Eventually the first volume appeared, as 

 a modest octavo, in 1843, with the title of ' Modern Painters : their 

 Superiority in the Art of Landscape-Painting to all the Ancient 

 Masters. By a Graduate of Oxford.' The work took the public com- 

 pletely by surprise. Such a bold denunciation, not only of all those 

 whom the art-critics of all countries had agreed to call ' the great 

 masters' of landscape -pain ting of (to use the author's words) 

 " Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Kosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruys- 

 dael, Hobbima, Teniers (in his landscapes), Paul Potter, Canaletti, and 

 the various Van-somethings and Back-somethings, more especially and 

 malignantly tbose who have libelled the sea," but even of all the 

 modern landscape-painters of France and Germany, might well startle 

 the sober reader, though the author declared his demonstrations to be 

 similar in strength to those of Euclid, and deemed it " proper for the 

 public to know, that the writer is no mere theorist, but has been 

 devoted from his youth to the laborious study of practical art." 

 A work so pompously heralded, and in itself so paradoxical, though it 

 might have secured a brief popularity and afforded a little temporary 

 amusement, must soon have sunk under the attacks of adverse criti- 

 cism, had it not possessed sterling excellences. And it was seen, 

 when fairly examined, that it was a work of no ordinary stamp. 

 Amidst an affluence of words unparalleled probably by any prose 

 writer since Jeremy Taylor, there was apparent original descriptive 

 genius that would have insured vitality to a poem ; an artistic eye 

 for form and colour such as few English writers on art had possessed; 

 very considerable acquaintance alike with pictures and the less known 

 aspects of natural scenery ; striking powers of observation and 

 reflection ; and an earnestness bordering on enthusiasm which gave 

 life and reality to every page. The work made its way and secured its 

 position. In 1846 a third edition (like the second, greatly enlarged 

 and altered) appeared, and it was accompanied by a second volume, 

 treating ' Of the Imaginative and Theoretic Faculties.' ' The Supe- 

 riority of Modern Painters ' was now dropped out of the title, and 

 the size was changed to an imperial octavo : it now in fact assumed to 

 be an elaborate treatise on landscape-painting in its principles and 

 developments. An interval of ten years elapsed before the third and 

 fourth volumes (' Of Many Things,' and ' Of Mountain Beauty ') 

 appeared, in 1856. These two volumes were much bulkier than the 

 preceding ones, and illustrated with engravings. A fifth volume is 

 announced as in preparation, and it will probably end the work, 

 though in the third volume Mr. Ruskin prudently announced, in 

 apologising for not having completed the work in the limits first pro- 

 posed, that "having of late found his designs always requiring enlarge- 

 ment in process of execution, he will take care, in future, to set no 

 limits whatsoever to any good intentions." 



It is a curious illustration of the extent to which this " enlargement 

 of his designs" may proceed "in the process of execution," that what 

 was originally intended as a letter to the editor of a review, although 

 still unfinished, has already expanded into by far the longest disserta- 

 tion on art in the English language. And this points at what has 

 prevented Mr. Ruskin taking the high place as an authority on art to 

 which he else might fairly have aspired. He appears never to think 

 out his subject before he writes upon it. Very much of his philosophy, 

 of his criticism, and of his invectivo (and whilst one of the greatest 

 roasters of diffuse writing he is one of the stronger in condensed 

 invective), is plainly the result of merely present feeling, and conse- 

 quently involves him in all kinds of difficulties and inconsistencies, 

 which much of his future time and temper is consumed in reconciling, 

 denying, or explaining away. He is in fact one of the most impulsive 

 of writers, whilst he also claims to be one of the most infallible. 

 Hence he turns, aside to settle every subject that happens to come 

 under notice in the course of his investigation (from the principles of 

 Christianity, and the emptiness of German philosophy, down to Gil 

 Bias's immorality, the worthlessness of railways for the conversion of 

 the heathen, and the vanity of ladies' dresses) instead of concentrating 

 his powers on the task that lies before him ; and thus we have in 

 ' Modern Painters ' the most diffuse and in many respects most 

 misleading, where we might have had the most important as well as 

 the most brilliant work of its kind in modern literature. It is in every 

 way to be lamented, for of the brilliancy of Mr. Ruskin's powers, and 

 the depth and subtlety of his feeling for art, there can be little 

 question, while he has undoubtedly pursued it with singular diligence, 



aud in a way that would of course have been impossible to one 

 possessed of lees leisure or more limited means. He says himself in 

 the Preface to the third volume of ' Modern Painters,' " I have now 

 given ten years of my life to the single purpose of enabling myself to 

 judge rightly of art, and spent them in labour as earnest and continuous 

 as men usually undertake to gain position, or accumulate fortune. . . 

 I have given up so much of life to this object ; earnestly desiring to 

 ascertain, and be able to teach, the truth respecting art." 



These ten years had been diligently occupied. During them he had 

 made repeated and prolonged visits to the Alps, and to the cities of 

 Italy especially Venice. Even his literary labour had been by no 

 means confined to the preparation of the remaining volumes of his 

 ' Modern Painters ;' on the contrary his pen had ranged over a very 

 wide field, and produced works that in mere extent would have done 

 credit to the industry of a tolerably assiduous litterateur. Dissatisfied 

 with the recent architectural productions of the country and what- 

 ever he may have thought of the superiority of living English painters, 

 he was satisfied of the hopeless inferiority of living English architects 

 he set himself eagerly to the task of propounding the true funda- 

 mental principles of architecture, and eradicating the effete fallacies 

 derived from Greece and Rome. Accordingly in 1849 appeared his 

 ' Seven Lamps of Architecture,' a work fully as positive, unflinching, 

 and self-reliant in criticism, as eloquent in description, as trenchant in 

 assertion, and as paradoxical and peculiar in matter as his former 

 work; and one that excited perhaps even more commotion among 

 architects than that had done among painters. The peculiarity of his 

 theorising on this subject consisted mainly perhaps in his endeavour- 

 ing- to convince his readers that the "attributes of a building" are 

 certain moral qualities, and essentially those of ' action,' ' voice,' and 

 ' beauty ;' but the book, like all his other books, entered upon a 

 multitude of ethical and philosophical speculations connected hi the 

 author's mind by some subtle links with his main subject, and treated 

 with his usual diffuse and glittering eloquence : it reached a second 

 editio'n in 1855. 



The 'Lamps of Architecture' were followed up by another and 

 longer work, in which he illustrated his views by an examination of 

 the older palaces of Venice, which Mr. Ruskin pointed out for study 

 and imitation as the highest style of edifice which had been anywhere 

 constructed. The first volume of ' The Stones of Venice: the 

 Foundations,' appeared in 1851 ; the second and third volumes, 'The 

 Sea-Stories,' and ' The FaM,' were published in 1853 : like his previous 

 works, they were goodly imperial octavo volumes, and illustrated with 

 steel-engravings and wood-cuts from his own drawings. He also com- 

 menced the publication of a series of ' Examples of the Architecture 

 of Venice, selected and drawn to measurement from the Edifices by 

 John Ruskin;' but only three parts were issued (all in 1851): the 

 examples were chiefly drawn in tinted lithography, but a few were in 

 mezzotint. The ' Stones of Venice ' probably satisfied few who took 

 it up as an architectural work, but as a poetic rhapsody on the fallen 

 city it was singularly interesting full of thought and fancy and rich 

 poetic description ; abounding in eloquent musing and impassioned 

 declamation ; in admirable delineations of the ancient glory and hope- 

 less ruin of the historic associations and pictorial wealth of Venice. 

 But it also contained as much rash assumption, and hasty and passionate 

 criticism, and no less extraordinary though often interesting aud 

 always entertaining digressions; to say nothing of the startling 

 dogmas flung in as it were by the way, such as " philology evidently 

 the most contemptible of all the sciences," and others of almost equally 

 ludicrous audacity. The last of his architectural publications was his 

 ' Lectures on Architecture and Painting,' delivered at Edinburgh, 8vo, 

 1854. A pamphlet, ' Notes on the Construction of Sheep-Folds,' Svo, 

 1851, appears to have been begun with a view to writing a dissertation 

 on church-building, but it became under his wayward pen rather a 

 discussion of church discipline and doctrine. Another pamphlet, 

 ' The Opening of the Crystal Palace : considered in some of its Relations 

 to the Prospects of Art,' Svo, 1854, may be mentioned in this connec- 

 tion, as it was in reality a proposal for the establishment of a society 

 for the preservation of Gothic buildings, aud the faithful record of 

 their present condition. As an example of his diversity we may add 

 that he published, about the Christmas of 1851, a fairy tale entitled 

 ' The King of the Golden River, or the Black Brothers.' 



One other phase of Mr. Ruskin's art-teaching must be noticed. In 

 1849, as mentioned elsewhere [Hxrar, W. H. ; MILLAIS, J. E.], the band 

 of young painters, styling themselves ' Pre-Raphaelites,' sprang into 

 existence, or at least into notice. These, although to ordinary observers 

 so unlike in their views of art to his great idol Turner, Ruskin claimed 

 as his disciples, and their pictures as the true and natural result of 

 a consistent working-out of the principles developed in his ' Modern 

 Painters.' Accordingly, finding as he considered that their excellences 

 were unappreciated, he undertook to elucidate and defend them by 

 the publication of a pamphlet, ' Pre-Raphaelitism,' Svo, 1851; and he 

 has continued since to divide his homage in matters of painting pretty 

 equally between his former and his later love. He has also published, 

 in the pamphlet form, ' Notes on some of the Principal Pictures 

 exhibited in the Rooms of the Royal Academy, 1855,' and a similar 

 series of ' Notes ' on the exhibition of 1856 ; and from the tenor of 

 his remarks it would seem that he purposes to make the series an 

 annual one. During the present spring (1857) he has issued another 



