DOI Heft:
No. 84 (March, 1900)
DOI Artikel:Cook, E. T.: Ruskin as artist and art critic
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19784#0104
"John Ruskin
masters, he disparaged in part those of others.
Ruskin was blind, it is said, to the merits of Claude.
The truth is that he exaggerated Claude's defects in
extolling Turner's merits ; but he saw the merits of
Claude also : " Claude effected a revolution in art;
he set the sun in the sky. We will give him the
credit of this with no drawbacks." Again, Sir
Edward Poynter has devoted a passionate chapter
to abusing Ruskin for his abuse of Michelangelo.
In emphasising the genius of Tintoret, Ruskin cer-
tainly disparaged unduly that of Michelangelo.
Yet, elsewhere, he redresses the balance. He
especially commended to his readers Mr. Tyrwhitt's
Lectures on Art. " These lectures," he says,
" show throughout the most beautiful and just
reverence for Michelangelo, and are of especial
value in their account of him ; while the lecture
which I gave at Oxford is entirely devoted to
examining the modes in which his genius itself
failed, and perverted that of other men. But
Michelangelo is great enough to make praise and
blame alike necessary and alike inadequate." The
forgetfulness of what Ruskin has really said is
sometimes complete. I read the other day in an
otherwise intelligent memoir that a generation
which admired Velasquez had out-lived the art
criticism of Ruskin. Not out lived, but absorbed,
and so forgotten ; for it was Ruskin who, half-a-
century ago, proclaimed the consummate excellence
of Velasquez—" the greatest artist of Spain," and
" one of the great artists of the world," the master
to all schools in his " consummate ease," the man
who was " never wrong."
Some, then, deny Ruskin's authority as an art
critic because they have forgotten it; others dispute
it because they misunderstand. The principal of
these misunderstandings relates to Ruskin's sup-
posed doctrine of a rigid adhesion to the whole
substance of external fact. This is founded on
the famous passage of " Modern Painters " in
which he bade young artists "go to Nature in all
singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously
and trustingly, having no other thoughts but how
best to penetrate her meaning, and remember her
instruction ; rejecting nothing, selecting nothing,
and scorning nothing." It is often supposed that
this was Ruskin's last word on the principles of
art—a strange supposition in the case of the
prophet of Turner and Tintoret ! But, in fact, the
counsels cited above were expressly addressed to
young artists. They inculcated a method of
study, a means of mastery, not a philosophy of
art. The passage is generally cited as if it stopped
with " rejecting nothing and selecting nothing."
But it does not. It immediately continues thus :
"Then, when their memories are stored and
their imaginations fed, and their hands firm,
let them take up the scarlet and the gold,
-'''V; ■ «V * \.
2 . ^L8> '
; J* .
"fribourg, Switzerland " FROM "STUDIES in RUSKIN " (George Allen) BY J0HN RUSKIN
'J'
masters, he disparaged in part those of others.
Ruskin was blind, it is said, to the merits of Claude.
The truth is that he exaggerated Claude's defects in
extolling Turner's merits ; but he saw the merits of
Claude also : " Claude effected a revolution in art;
he set the sun in the sky. We will give him the
credit of this with no drawbacks." Again, Sir
Edward Poynter has devoted a passionate chapter
to abusing Ruskin for his abuse of Michelangelo.
In emphasising the genius of Tintoret, Ruskin cer-
tainly disparaged unduly that of Michelangelo.
Yet, elsewhere, he redresses the balance. He
especially commended to his readers Mr. Tyrwhitt's
Lectures on Art. " These lectures," he says,
" show throughout the most beautiful and just
reverence for Michelangelo, and are of especial
value in their account of him ; while the lecture
which I gave at Oxford is entirely devoted to
examining the modes in which his genius itself
failed, and perverted that of other men. But
Michelangelo is great enough to make praise and
blame alike necessary and alike inadequate." The
forgetfulness of what Ruskin has really said is
sometimes complete. I read the other day in an
otherwise intelligent memoir that a generation
which admired Velasquez had out-lived the art
criticism of Ruskin. Not out lived, but absorbed,
and so forgotten ; for it was Ruskin who, half-a-
century ago, proclaimed the consummate excellence
of Velasquez—" the greatest artist of Spain," and
" one of the great artists of the world," the master
to all schools in his " consummate ease," the man
who was " never wrong."
Some, then, deny Ruskin's authority as an art
critic because they have forgotten it; others dispute
it because they misunderstand. The principal of
these misunderstandings relates to Ruskin's sup-
posed doctrine of a rigid adhesion to the whole
substance of external fact. This is founded on
the famous passage of " Modern Painters " in
which he bade young artists "go to Nature in all
singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously
and trustingly, having no other thoughts but how
best to penetrate her meaning, and remember her
instruction ; rejecting nothing, selecting nothing,
and scorning nothing." It is often supposed that
this was Ruskin's last word on the principles of
art—a strange supposition in the case of the
prophet of Turner and Tintoret ! But, in fact, the
counsels cited above were expressly addressed to
young artists. They inculcated a method of
study, a means of mastery, not a philosophy of
art. The passage is generally cited as if it stopped
with " rejecting nothing and selecting nothing."
But it does not. It immediately continues thus :
"Then, when their memories are stored and
their imaginations fed, and their hands firm,
let them take up the scarlet and the gold,
-'''V; ■ «V * \.
2 . ^L8> '
; J* .
"fribourg, Switzerland " FROM "STUDIES in RUSKIN " (George Allen) BY J0HN RUSKIN
'J'