DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61217#0213
‘LECTURES ON ART.’
201
their biography—how and where they live and die,
their tempers, benevolences, malignities, distresses, and
virtues. We want them drawn from their youth to their
age, from bud to fruit. . . . And all this we ought to
have drawn so accurately that we might at once compare
any given part of a plant with the same part of any
other, drawn on the like conditions. Now, is not this
a work which we may set about here in Oxford, with
good hope and much pleasure ? ”
Not many thought so, it is said. The professor’s classes
were not well attended. He went on to suggest that
geology should be served, as well as botany, and urged
his art students to the study of the cleavage-lines of the
smallest fragments of rock. To the rescue of topo-
graphy, and zoology, and history they might go too.
“ The feudal and monastic buildings of Europe, and
still more the streets of her ancient cities, are vanishing
like dreams; and it is difficult to imagine the mingled
envy and contempt with which future generations will
look back to us, who still possessed such things, yet
made no effort to preserve, and scarcely any to delineate
them; for, when used as material of landscape by the
modern artist, they are nearly always superficially or
flatteringly represented, without zeal enough to pene-
trate their character, or patience enough to render it
in modest harmony.”
Ruskin appeals to those professing to love art that
they would labour to “ get the country clean and the
people lovely,” to rescue young creatures from miserable
toil and deadly shade, to dress them better, to lodge
them more fitly, to restore the handicrafts to dignity
201
their biography—how and where they live and die,
their tempers, benevolences, malignities, distresses, and
virtues. We want them drawn from their youth to their
age, from bud to fruit. . . . And all this we ought to
have drawn so accurately that we might at once compare
any given part of a plant with the same part of any
other, drawn on the like conditions. Now, is not this
a work which we may set about here in Oxford, with
good hope and much pleasure ? ”
Not many thought so, it is said. The professor’s classes
were not well attended. He went on to suggest that
geology should be served, as well as botany, and urged
his art students to the study of the cleavage-lines of the
smallest fragments of rock. To the rescue of topo-
graphy, and zoology, and history they might go too.
“ The feudal and monastic buildings of Europe, and
still more the streets of her ancient cities, are vanishing
like dreams; and it is difficult to imagine the mingled
envy and contempt with which future generations will
look back to us, who still possessed such things, yet
made no effort to preserve, and scarcely any to delineate
them; for, when used as material of landscape by the
modern artist, they are nearly always superficially or
flatteringly represented, without zeal enough to pene-
trate their character, or patience enough to render it
in modest harmony.”
Ruskin appeals to those professing to love art that
they would labour to “ get the country clean and the
people lovely,” to rescue young creatures from miserable
toil and deadly shade, to dress them better, to lodge
them more fitly, to restore the handicrafts to dignity