DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18975#0566
Ill
PASSAGES FROM THE MS. OF THE IN-
TENDED CONTINUATION OF "THE
LAWS OF FESOLE"
[RusKiN intended to complete the o/ Fdyo/e by a second volume,
"treating mostly of colour" (above, p. 34-6). This second volume was
never published or put into shape, but among the author's MSS., collected
with other matter in a bound volume now at Brantwood, are many sheets
intended for it. Some contain the beginnings of chapters; others, notes,
memoranda, and diagrams of intended exercises. Among this material
are several sheets of diagrams, etc., showing that Ruskin at one time in-
tended to carry further the examination " Of Elementary Organic Structure "
(ch. vi.), and to enter upon an elaborate discussion of the mathematical
laws of proportion, and of spirals in art. This material, however, is very
fragmentary and incomplete. On other sheets, dealing with colour, there
are a few passages which are intelligible in themselves, and of sufficient
interest to be worth printing.]
1. STANDARDS OF COLOUR
Thus far I have been speaking only of hues of colour, absolute;
I have next to state the laws regarding their texture and quality.
There are essentially three kinds of colours in natural objects:
hrst, those of transparent substances, as of red wine; secondly, those
of entirely opaque substances, with lustreless surface, as the colour of
the bloom on a plum; and lastly, the colour of opaque substances
burnished, polished, or wet, as of line agates, marbles, and burnished
metals.
Between these various modes of colour, where used by Nature, the
mind and eye of man make no distinction involving relative excellence
or inferiority. Each kind is equally valued in its time and place ; all
of us like to see the green sea curling into crests of crystal wave ; all
of us like to see the downy amber of the apricot and the bedewed dark-
ness of the grape; and all of us rejoice in the gleam of inwoven gold
through the peacock's plume and the lambent bronze and purple of
the pheasant's breast. But in the application of these various orders
495
PASSAGES FROM THE MS. OF THE IN-
TENDED CONTINUATION OF "THE
LAWS OF FESOLE"
[RusKiN intended to complete the o/ Fdyo/e by a second volume,
"treating mostly of colour" (above, p. 34-6). This second volume was
never published or put into shape, but among the author's MSS., collected
with other matter in a bound volume now at Brantwood, are many sheets
intended for it. Some contain the beginnings of chapters; others, notes,
memoranda, and diagrams of intended exercises. Among this material
are several sheets of diagrams, etc., showing that Ruskin at one time in-
tended to carry further the examination " Of Elementary Organic Structure "
(ch. vi.), and to enter upon an elaborate discussion of the mathematical
laws of proportion, and of spirals in art. This material, however, is very
fragmentary and incomplete. On other sheets, dealing with colour, there
are a few passages which are intelligible in themselves, and of sufficient
interest to be worth printing.]
1. STANDARDS OF COLOUR
Thus far I have been speaking only of hues of colour, absolute;
I have next to state the laws regarding their texture and quality.
There are essentially three kinds of colours in natural objects:
hrst, those of transparent substances, as of red wine; secondly, those
of entirely opaque substances, with lustreless surface, as the colour of
the bloom on a plum; and lastly, the colour of opaque substances
burnished, polished, or wet, as of line agates, marbles, and burnished
metals.
Between these various modes of colour, where used by Nature, the
mind and eye of man make no distinction involving relative excellence
or inferiority. Each kind is equally valued in its time and place ; all
of us like to see the green sea curling into crests of crystal wave ; all
of us like to see the downy amber of the apricot and the bedewed dark-
ness of the grape; and all of us rejoice in the gleam of inwoven gold
through the peacock's plume and the lambent bronze and purple of
the pheasant's breast. But in the application of these various orders
495