Part 18 (1/2)

It is true however also, as I have pointed out long ago, that the strongsimple and natural lives, the other restrained in a Puritanism of the worshi+p of beauty; and these two nize in a est; but there are two of the Puritans, whose work if I can succeed inmy three years[183] here, it is all I need care to do But of these two Puritans one I cannot name to you, and the other I at present will not One I cannot, for no one knows his name, except the baptismal one, Bernard, or ”dear little Bernard”--Bernardino, called froiore,) Bernard of Luino The other is a Venetian, of whoh et soland

Observe then, this Puritanish sometimes weak, is always honourable and amiable, and the exact reverse of the false Puritanism, which consists in the dread or disdain of beauty And in order to treat ht to proceed from the skill of art to the choice of its subject, and show you how thelovely forhts 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 h of it in h of the infallibleness of fine technical work as a proof of every other good power And indeed it was long before I reatest men in their mere execution, shown for a permanent lesson to us, in the stories which, whether true or not, indicate with absolute accuracy the general conviction of great artists;--the stories of the contest of Apelles and Protogenes[184] in a line only, (of which I can pro to some purpose in a little while),--the story of the circle of Giotto,[185] and especially, which you may perhaps not have observed, the expression of Durer in his inscription on the drawings sent hiures, he says, ”Raphael drew and sent to Albert Durer in Nurnberg, 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 exa to escape fro the the what they cannot perforreat deal of what isbut 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 everybody 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 eh capable of the very strongest passions, into a calm as absolute as that of a deeply sheltered itation of the clouds in the sky, and every change of the shadows on the hills, but AS itself reat obscurity has been brought upon the truth in this rity and sirity in the Latin sense, wholeness

Everything is broken up, and hts; besides being in great part imitative: so that you not only cannot tell what a man is, but sometimes you cannot tell whether he _is_, at all!--whether you have indeed to do with a spirit, or only with an echo And thus the same inconsistencies appear now, between the work of artists of merit and their personal characters, as those which you find continually disappointing expectation in the lives of men ofobscured or ination, both in our literature and art Thus there is no serious question with any of us as to the personal character of Dante and Giotto, of Shakespeare and Holbein; but we pause timidly in the attempt to analyze the moral laws of the art skill in recent poets, novelists, and painters

Let row older, if you enable yourselves to distinguish by the truth of your own lives, what is true in those of other in in good, never in evil; that the fact of either literature or painting being truly fine of their kind, whatever their in: and that, if there is indeed sterling value in the thing done, it has co worth in the soul that did it, however alloyed or defiled by conditions of sin which are soe 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 judght And it is sufficient warning against what soht dread as the probable effect of such a conviction on your own ht perined to be allied to genius, when they took the form of personal teainst so mean a folly, to discern, as you may with little pains, that, of all human existences, the lives of men of that distorted and tainted nobility of intellect are probably the most miserable

I pass to the second, and for us the more practically important question, What is the effect of noble art upon other men; what has it done for national morality in tie or possession of it likely to have upon us now?

And here we are at once loomy as indisputable, that, whilewhom scarcely the rudest practice of art has ever been attempted, have lived in comparative innocence, honour, and happiness, the worst foulness and cruelty of savage tribes have been frequently associated with fine ingenuities of decorative design; also, that no people has ever attained the higher stages of art skill, except at a period of its civilization which was sullied by frequent, violent, and evenof perfection in art power, has been hitherto, in every nation, the accurate signal of the beginning of its ruin

Respecting which phenos out of evil, it is developed to its highest by contention with evil There are soroups of peasantry, in far-away nooks of Christian countries, who are nearly as innocent as laives power to art is the morality of men, not of cattle

Secondly, the virtues of the inhabitants of many country districts are apparent, not real; their lives are indeed artless, but not innocent; and it is only the monotony of circumstances, and the absence of temptation, which prevent the exhibition of evil passions not less real because often dormant, nor less foul because shown only in petty faults, or inactive nities

But you will observe also that _absolute_ artlessness, to men in any kind of moral health, is impossible; they have always, at least, the art by which they live--agriculture or seamanshi+p; and in these industries, skilfully practised, you will find the law of their ; while, whatever the adversity of circuhtly-minded peasantry, such as that of Sweden, Denmark, Bavaria, or Switzerland, has associated with its needful industry a quite studied school of pleasurable art in dress; and generally also in song, and siain, 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 of rowth And where neither Christianity, nor any other religion conveying soy of such races necessarily flahtful forms assumed by their art are precisely indicative of their distorted reat nations nearly always begin froinative power; and for soress is very slow, and their state not one of innocence, but of feverish and faultful aniht hu itself with the rest of the nature, until social perfectness is nearly reached; and then cohly developed, that new forin 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 develope 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 leauides its oscillation It is true that their most splendid results are usually obtained in the swiftness of the pohich is hurrying to the precipice; but to lay the charge of the catastrophe to the art by which it is illumined, is to find a cause for the cataract in the hues of its iris It is true that the colossal vices belonging to periods of great national wealth (for wealth, you will find, is the real root of all evil)[186] can turn every good gift and skill of nature or of man to evil purpose If, in such times, fair pictures have been misused, how much more fair realities? And if Miranda is immoral to Caliban is that Miranda's fault?

[183] As Slade Professor, Ruskin held a three years' appointment at Oxford

[184] This story comes from Pliny, _Natural History_, 35 36; the two rival painters alternately showing their skill by the drawing of lines of increasing fineness

[185] This story comes from Vasari's _Lives of the Painters_ See Blashfield and Hopkins's ed vol 1, p 61 Giotto was asked by a er of the Pope for a specimen of his work, and sent a perfect circle, drawn free hand

[186] _Timothy_ vi, 10

THE RELATION OF ART TO USE

Our subject of inquiry to-day, you will remember, is the mode in which fine art is founded upon, or may contribute to, the practical requirements of human life

Its offices in this respect are e, and Grace to utility; that is to say, it s which otherwise could neither be described by our science, nor retained by our htfulness and worth to the impleing In the first of these offices it gives precision and charives precision and charhly, it is a law of nature that we shall be pleased with ourselves, and with the thing we have made; and become desirous therefore to adorn or complete it, in some dainty ith finer art expressive of our pleasure

And the point I wish chiefly to bring before you today is this close and healthy connection of the fine arts with ht the function of art in giving Form to truth

Much that I have hitherto tried to teach has been disputed on the ground that I have attached toonatural facts, and too little to it as a source of pleasure 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 inferior kind, and tend to deeper inferiority, unless it has clearly one of these _, or to _adorn a serviceable one_ It htly only when it is the ency for life

Now, I pray you to observe--for though I have said this often before, I have never yet said it clearly enough--every good piece of art, to whichever of these ends it may be directed, involves first essentially the evidence of hu by it

Skill and beauty, always, then; and, beyond these, the formative arts have always one or other of the two objects which I have just defined to you--truth, or serviceableness; and without these aims neither the skill nor their beauty will avail; only by these can either legiti the outline of shadow that we have loved, and they end in giving to it the aspect of life; and all the architectural arts begin in the shaping of the cup and the platter, and they end in a glorified roof

Therefore, you see, in the graphic arts you have Skill, Beauty, and Likeness; and in the architectural arts Skill, Beauty, and Use: and you _roup, balanced and co-ordinate; and all the chief errors of art consist in losing or exaggerating one of these elements

For instance, almost the whole system and hope of modern life are founded on the notion that you raph for picture, cast-iron for sculpture That is your main nineteenth-century faith, or infidelity You think you can get everything by grinding--rievously not so; you can get nothing but dust by