DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61217#0188
176
JOHN RUSKIN.
believed, to be the greatest painter of the schools of
England since Reynolds. I had then perfect faith in
the power of every great truth or beauty to prevail
ultimately. . . . Fortunately or unfortunately, an oppor-
tunity of perfect trial undeceived me at once and for
ever.”
Ruskin found that the Turner drawings arranged by
him for exhibition were the object of absolute public
neglect. He saw that his ten years had been lost.
“For that I did not much care; I had, at least,
learned my own business thoroughly. . . . But what I
did care for was the—to me frightful—discovery, that
the most splendid genius in the arts might be permitted
by Providence to labour and perish uselessly, . . . that
the glory of it was perishable as well as invisible. That
was the first mystery of life to me.”
The reader will remember that Turner’s pictures were
not only neglected by men, but also irreparably injured
and altered by time; to witness this was to endure the
chastisement of a hope whereof few men are capable.
Surely it is no obscure sign of greatness in a soul—that
it should have hoped so much. Ninety and nine are
they who need no repentance, having not committed
the sin of going thus in front of the judgments of
Heaven—heralds—and have not been called back to
rebuke as was this one. In what has so often been
called the dogmatism of Ruskin’s work appears this all-
noble fault.
Upon the discovery of this mystery crowd all the
mysteries. Who that has suffered one but has also soon
JOHN RUSKIN.
believed, to be the greatest painter of the schools of
England since Reynolds. I had then perfect faith in
the power of every great truth or beauty to prevail
ultimately. . . . Fortunately or unfortunately, an oppor-
tunity of perfect trial undeceived me at once and for
ever.”
Ruskin found that the Turner drawings arranged by
him for exhibition were the object of absolute public
neglect. He saw that his ten years had been lost.
“For that I did not much care; I had, at least,
learned my own business thoroughly. . . . But what I
did care for was the—to me frightful—discovery, that
the most splendid genius in the arts might be permitted
by Providence to labour and perish uselessly, . . . that
the glory of it was perishable as well as invisible. That
was the first mystery of life to me.”
The reader will remember that Turner’s pictures were
not only neglected by men, but also irreparably injured
and altered by time; to witness this was to endure the
chastisement of a hope whereof few men are capable.
Surely it is no obscure sign of greatness in a soul—that
it should have hoped so much. Ninety and nine are
they who need no repentance, having not committed
the sin of going thus in front of the judgments of
Heaven—heralds—and have not been called back to
rebuke as was this one. In what has so often been
called the dogmatism of Ruskin’s work appears this all-
noble fault.
Upon the discovery of this mystery crowd all the
mysteries. Who that has suffered one but has also soon