OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 



99 



art which centred in Goethe was probably the more 

 comprehensive ; but in spite of its comprehensiveness, 

 it was — probably with the single exception of Goethe 

 himself — wanting in detailed and faithful studies of 

 nature. The whole artistic interest of that age centred 

 in the problem of mind, be it divine or human, in the 

 individual. Thus the principal illustrations of such 

 aesthetical theories as those of Schiller, Schelling, and 

 Hegel, are drawn from poetry or from the plastic arts of 

 classical antiquity ; the " characteristic " is to be found, 

 according to a passage quoted above from Schelling's 

 ' Address,' in an individual moment of perfection. With 

 this stands in marked contrast the new world of artistic 

 creation which Euskin made the object of his study. 

 " It is," says Professor Bosanquet,^ " this point of view 

 that we owe to Mr Euskin's unwearied justification of 

 the art of Turner, and it is not too much to say that he, 

 like Winckelmann, has given the mind a new organ for 

 the appreciation of beauty. The characteristic in nature 

 as a whole, though a point of view imperatively de- 

 manded by the theory of Hegel, Goethe, and Schelling, 



course of his literary career. The 

 social importance of art took in 

 Ruskin a more practical shape than 

 it did in Schiller's writings or, more 

 recently, in those of J. M. Guyau in 

 France. 



^ Loc. cit., p. 448 sqq. " The true 

 question is, in the first instance, as 

 to the range and vigour of beauty 

 itself. Now, in one aspect of this 

 question we owe something like a 

 revolution to the English art and 

 criticism of this century. This 

 aspect is our appreciation of ex- 

 ternal nature in the form of land- 

 scape scenery." It is somewhat 



surprising that in this connection 

 Prof. Bosanquet did not also men- 

 tion Wordsworth and Tennyson, 

 nor refer to the great influence 

 which amateur naturalists, begin- 

 ning with White of Selborne, had 

 on the growing appreciation of 

 natural beauty. In general, we 

 may also note the development of 

 this side of artistic taste among 

 amateur sketchers ; and the wealth 

 in picturing the life and beauty of 

 nature in what may probably be 

 considered the best in the verse 

 of the minor English poets of the 

 day. 



