DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61217#0155
‘THE TWO PATHS.’
143
calls for more indignant groans. To pass to the art,
however : Indian art “ never represents a natural fact,”
says Ruskin; but (putting aside the certain truth that
it is suggested by natural fact, and that the European
“ conventional ” art is no more than suggested by
natural fact) what becomes of his contention that
Indian art is therefore a portent of degradation, in
view of the statement on a previous page that the
perfect statue and the perfect picture were also, in
Rome and Venice, portents of degradation? Surely
the perfect statue represents a natural fact. And
at the end of a close and urgent argument, the
reader asks where, then, is Scotland in all this ?
The Scot of the cottage does not produce the art
taught by organic form which is so nobly described as
righteous—he produces no art; or stay, he produces
the plaid just mentioned, which is much, much less
organic than anything in the whole range of Indian
design. The curve of an Indian shawl-pattern has a
natural inspiration; what life — let alone the noble
animal and human life which Ruskin declares to be
the highest inspiration of art—but what life, however
humble, what life of any degree of humbleness, is
represented, much less imitated, by the plaid? To
despise life is, Ruskin teaches, the first and ultimate
sin. Well, then, asks his reader, are they to be held
innocent of that sin who, having before their eyes
the living proportion of common plant-growth, and
the form of rock, less vital yet erect in all the gravity
143
calls for more indignant groans. To pass to the art,
however : Indian art “ never represents a natural fact,”
says Ruskin; but (putting aside the certain truth that
it is suggested by natural fact, and that the European
“ conventional ” art is no more than suggested by
natural fact) what becomes of his contention that
Indian art is therefore a portent of degradation, in
view of the statement on a previous page that the
perfect statue and the perfect picture were also, in
Rome and Venice, portents of degradation? Surely
the perfect statue represents a natural fact. And
at the end of a close and urgent argument, the
reader asks where, then, is Scotland in all this ?
The Scot of the cottage does not produce the art
taught by organic form which is so nobly described as
righteous—he produces no art; or stay, he produces
the plaid just mentioned, which is much, much less
organic than anything in the whole range of Indian
design. The curve of an Indian shawl-pattern has a
natural inspiration; what life — let alone the noble
animal and human life which Ruskin declares to be
the highest inspiration of art—but what life, however
humble, what life of any degree of humbleness, is
represented, much less imitated, by the plaid? To
despise life is, Ruskin teaches, the first and ultimate
sin. Well, then, asks his reader, are they to be held
innocent of that sin who, having before their eyes
the living proportion of common plant-growth, and
the form of rock, less vital yet erect in all the gravity