DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61217#0027
‘MODERN PAINTERS’—FIRST VOLUME. I 5
structive violence—is an intelligible condition of the
art whereof this is the apostolate: but detail ? Is
detail, or explicit recognition of minor facts, really
the “ sign of the production of a consummate master ” ?
“ Details contributing to a final purpose ” seems to be
a phrase permitting the ignoring of details that do
not contribute. And what does the Impressionist ask
more than this ? A powerful artist, says Ruskin in a
previous sentence, “ necessarily looks upon complete
parts as the very sign of error, weakness, and ignor-
ance.” Once for all, this should answer the common
and careless reading of Modern Painters and the rest.
Leaving the question of detail, then, aside, or
leaving it, if once for all is hardly possible, for a
time, we shall do justice to Ruskin’s teaching by
choosipg from his most dogmatic pages the following
passages that bear upon the larger question of truth :—
“ When there are things in the foreground of
Salvator, of which I cannot pronounce whether they
be granite, or slate, or tufa, I affirm that there is in
them neither harmonious union nor simple effect, but
simple monstrosity. . . . The elements of brutes can
only mix in corruption, the elements of inorganic
nature only in annihilation. We may, if we choose,
put together centaur monsters : but they must still be
half man, half horse; they cannot be both man and
horse, nor either man or horse.”
And this:—
“ That only should be considered a picture in which
the spirit, not the materials, observe, but the animating
structive violence—is an intelligible condition of the
art whereof this is the apostolate: but detail ? Is
detail, or explicit recognition of minor facts, really
the “ sign of the production of a consummate master ” ?
“ Details contributing to a final purpose ” seems to be
a phrase permitting the ignoring of details that do
not contribute. And what does the Impressionist ask
more than this ? A powerful artist, says Ruskin in a
previous sentence, “ necessarily looks upon complete
parts as the very sign of error, weakness, and ignor-
ance.” Once for all, this should answer the common
and careless reading of Modern Painters and the rest.
Leaving the question of detail, then, aside, or
leaving it, if once for all is hardly possible, for a
time, we shall do justice to Ruskin’s teaching by
choosipg from his most dogmatic pages the following
passages that bear upon the larger question of truth :—
“ When there are things in the foreground of
Salvator, of which I cannot pronounce whether they
be granite, or slate, or tufa, I affirm that there is in
them neither harmonious union nor simple effect, but
simple monstrosity. . . . The elements of brutes can
only mix in corruption, the elements of inorganic
nature only in annihilation. We may, if we choose,
put together centaur monsters : but they must still be
half man, half horse; they cannot be both man and
horse, nor either man or horse.”
And this:—
“ That only should be considered a picture in which
the spirit, not the materials, observe, but the animating