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

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THE ELEMENTS OP DRAWING. [letter hi.

are ugly in themselves, but because the mind per-
ceives at once that there has been cost uselessly
thrown away for the sake of formality.1

Well, to return to our continuity. We see that
the Turnerian bridge in Fig. 32. is of the absolutely

1 The cost of art in getting a bridge level is always lost,
for you must get up to the height of the central arch at any
rate, and you only can make the whole bridge level by putting
the hill farther back, and pretending to have got rid of it when
you have not, but have only wasted money in building an un-
necessary embankment. Of course, the bridge should not be
difficultly or dangerously steep, but the necessary slope, what-
ever it may be, should be in the bridge itself, as far as the
bridge can take it, and not pushed aside into the approach,
as in our Waterloo road ; the only rational excuse for doing
which is that when the slope must be long it is inconvenient
to put on a drag at the top of the bridge, and that any restive-
ness of the horse is more dangerous on the bridge than on the
embankment. To this I answer : first, it is not more dan-
gerous in reality, though it looks so, for the bridge is always
guarded by an effective parapet, but the embankment is sure
to have no parapet, or only a useless rail; and secondly,
that it is better to have the slope on the bridge and make
the roadway wide in proportion, so as to be quite safe, because
a little waste of space on the river is no loss, but your wide
embankment at the side loses good ground; and so my pictu-
resque bridges are right as well as beautiful, and I hope to
see them built again some day instead of the frightful straight-
backed things which we fancy are fine, and accept from the
pontifical rigidities of the engineering mind.