Ruskin, John: The elements of drawing: in three letters to beginners (London, 1857)

PREFACE.

xix

when perspective was first discovered, everybody
amused themselves with it; and all the great
painters put fine saloons and arcades behind their
madonnas, merely to show that they could draw in
perspective : but even this was generally done by
them only to catch the public eye, and they dis-
dained the perspective so much, that though they
took the greatest pains with the circlet of a crown,
or the rim of a crystal cup, in the heart of their
picture, they would twist their capitals of columns
and towers of churches about in the background
in the most wanton way, wherever they liked the
lines to go, provided only they left just perspective
enough to please the public. In modern days,
I doubt if any artist among us, except David
Roberts, knows so much perspective as would
enable him to draw a Gothic arch to scale at a
given angle and distance. Turner, though he
was professor of perspective to the Royal Academy,
did not know what he professed, and never, as
far as I remember, drew a single building in true
perspective in his life ; he drew them only with as
much perspective as suited him. Prout also knew

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