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

letter iii.] ON COLOUR AND COMPOSITION.

299

in his chosen rhythm.1 And continually in paint-
ing, inferior artists destroy their work by giving
too much of all that they think is good, while the
great painter gives just enough to be enjoyed, and
passes to an opposite kind of enjoyment, or to an
inferior state of enjoyment: he gives a passage of
rich, involved, exquisitely wrought colour, then
passes away into slight, and pale, and simple colour ;
he paints for a minute or two with intense decision,
then suddenly becomes, as the spectator thinks,
slovenly; but he is not slovenly: you could not have
taken any more decision from him just then; you
have had as much as is good for you : he paints over
a great space of his picture forms of the most
rounded and melting tenderness, and suddenly, as
you think by a freak, gives you a bit as jagged and
sharp leafless blackthorn. Perhaps the most

" A prudent chief not always must display
His powers in equal ranks and fair array,
But with the occasion and the place comply,
Conceal his force ; nay, seem sometimes to fly.
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream."

Essay on Criticism.