Part 19 (1/2)

[192] The nae, the ”Earthworker,” or ”Husbandman”

[Ruskin]

[193] _Luke_ xxiv, 35

[194] Virgil, _aeneid_, 3, 209 _seqq_ [Ruskin]

[195] _Acts_ xiv, 17

[196] _Psalms_ i, 3

[197] _Genesis_ xxiv, 15, 16 and xxix, 10; _Exodus_ ii, 16; _John_ iv, 11

[198] Osborne Gordon [Ruskin]

ART AND HISTORY

ATHENA ERGANE

This short selection is taken from the volume entitled _The Queen of the Air_, in which Ruskin, fascinated by the deep significance of the Greekthem, attempts to interpret those that cluster about Athena The book was published June 22, 1869 It is divided into three ”Lectures,” parts of which actually were delivered as lectures on different occasions, entitled respectively ”Athena Chalinitis” (Athena in the Heavens), ”Athena Keraane” (Athena in the Heart) The first lecture is the only one which keeps to the title of the book; in the others the legend is used nant ideas on social and historical problems The book as a whole abounds in flashes of inspiration and insight, and is a favourite with many readers of Ruskin

Carlyle, in a letter to Froude, wrote: ”Passages of that last book, _Queen of the Air_, went into s, and through many years of endeavour to define the laws of art, I have insisted on this Tightness in work, and on its connection with virtue of character, in so many partial ways, that the impression left on the reader's mind--if, indeed, it was ever iinning the series of my corrected works, I wish this principle (in my own mind the foundation of every other) to beelse is: and will try, therefore, to make it so, so far as, by any effort, I can put it into unmistakable words And, first, here is a very siiven lately in a lecture on the Architecture of the Valley of the Somme,[199] which will be better read in this place than in its incidental connection with my account of the porches of Abbeville

I had used, in a preceding part of the lecture, the expression, ”by what faults” this Gothic architecture fell We continually speak thus of works of art We talk of their faults andof the faults of a picture, or the merits of a piece of stone?

The faults of a work of art are the faults of its workman, and its virtues his virtues

Great art is the expression of the reat 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 htful man planned it, and a careful man cut it, and an honest man cemented it If it has too reedy 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 s,--you may read the characters of men, and of nations, in their art, as in a nified a hundredfold; for the character becomes passionate in the art, and intensifies itself in all its noblest or hts Nay, not only as in a microscope, but as under a scalpel, and in dissection; for a man may hide himself from you, or misrepresent 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 iination, his affections, his perseverance, his i is there If the work is a cobweb, you knoas 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 noble

And always, froood or bad, so is the ment more or less, whether you theoretically adable;[200]

you don't suppose the e could have built that, or that the e? Do you think an old Roree work? or that Michael Angelo would have spent his ti these stems of roses in and out? Or, of lar, or a brute, or a pickpocket could have carved it? Could Bill Sykes have done it? or the Dodger, dexterous with finger and tool? You will find in the end, that _no man could have done it but exactly theclose at it, you may, if you know your letters, read precisely the manner of rave 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; and that which is born of valour and honour, teaches valour and honour Al art is either infection or education It _must_ be one or other of these

This, I repeat, of all truths respecting art, is the one of which understanding is the most precious, and denial the most deadly And I assert it the more, because it has of late been repeatedly, expressly, and with contuh authority: and I hold it one of the most sorrowful facts connected with the decline of the arts a as scholars and artists, should have been blinded into the acceptance, and betrayed into the assertion of a fallacy which only authority such as theirs could have rendered for an instant credible For the contrary of it is written in the history of all great nations; it is the one sentence always inscribed on the steps of their thrones; the one concordant voice in which they speak to us out of their dust

All such nations first manifest themselves as a pure and beautiful aniination They live lives of hardshi+p by choice, and by grand instinct of manly discipline: they become fierce and irresistible soldiers; the nation is always its own arovernment, is always their first soldier Pharaoh, or David, or Leonidas, or Valerius, or Barbarossa, or Coeur de Lion, or St Louis, or Dandolo, or Frederick the Great:--Egyptian, Jew, Greek, Rolish, French, Venetian,--that is inviolable law for the ressive power Then, after their great military period, co the discipline of war, they add to their great soldiershi+p the delights and possessions of a delicate and tender home-life: and then, for all nations, is the time of their perfect art, which is the fruit, the evidence, the reward of their national ideal of character, developed by the finished care of the occupations of peace That is the history of all true art that ever was, or can be: palpably the history of it,--unht,--in tongues of fire, by which the seal of virtue is branded as deep as ever iron burnt into a convict's flesh the seal of crireat period, has followed the day of luxury, and pursuit of the arts for pleasure only And all has so ended

Thus far of Abbeville building Now I have here asserted two things,--first, the foundation of art in moral character; next, the foundation of moral character in war I must make both these assertions clearer, and prove them

First, of the foundation of art in ift and aood man is not necessarily a painter, nor does an eye for colour necessarily ireat 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