Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture / Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870

by John Ruskin

LECTURE V.

STRUCTURE.

December, 1870.

143. On previous occasions of addressing you, I have endeavored to show you, first, how sculpture is distinguished from other arts; then its proper subjects; then its proper method in the realization of these subjects. To-day, we must, in the fourth place, consider the means at its command for the accomplishment of these ends; the nature of its materials; and the mechanical or other difficulties of their treatment.

And however doubtful we may have remained as to the justice of Greek ideals, or propriety of Greek methods of representing them, we may be certain that the example of the Greeks will be instructive in all practical matters relating to this great art, peculiarly their own. I think even the evidence I have already laid before you is enough to convince you that it was by rightness and reality, not by idealism or delightfulness only, that their minds were finally guided; and I am sure that, before closing the present course, I shall be able so far to complete that evidence, as to prove to you that the commonly received notions of classic art are, not only unfounded, but even, in many respects, directly contrary to the truth. You are constantly told that Greece idealized whatever she contemplated. She did the exact contrary: she realized and verified it. You are constantly told she sought only the beautiful. She sought, indeed, with all her heart; but she found, because she never doubted that the search was to be consistent with propriety and common sense. And the first thing you will always discern in Greek work is the first which you ought to discern in all work; namely, that the object of it has been rational, and has been obtained by simple and unostentatious means.

144. "That the object of the work has been rational"! Consider how much that implies. That it should be by all means seen to have been determined upon, and carried through, with sense and discretion; these being gifts of intellect far more precious than any knowledge of mathematics, or of the mechanical resources of art. Therefore, also, that it should be a modest and temperate work, a structure fitted to the actual state of men; proportioned to their actual size, as animals,—to their average strength,—to their true necessities,—and to the degree of easy command they have over the forces and substances of nature.

145. You see how much this law excludes! All that is fondly magnificent, insolently ambitious, or vainly difficult. There is, indeed, such a thing as Magnanimity in design, but never unless it be joined also with modesty, and Equanimity. Nothing extravagant, monstrous, strained, or singular, can be structurally beautiful. No towers of Babel envious of the skies; no pyramids in mimicry of the mountains of the earth; no streets that are a weariness to traverse, nor temples that make pigmies of the worshipers.

It is one of the primal merits and decencies of Greek work, that it was, on the whole, singularly small in scale, and wholly within reach of sight, to its finest details. And, indeed, the best buildings that I know are thus modest; and some of the best are minute jewel cases for sweet sculpture. The Parthenon would hardly attract notice, if it were set by the Charing Cross Railway Station: the Church of the Miracoli, at Venice, the Chapel of the Rose, at Lucca, and the Chapel of the Thorn, at Pisa, would not, I suppose, all three together, fill the tenth part, cube, of a transept of the Crystal Palace. And they are better so.

146. In the chapter on Power in the 'Seven Lamps of Architecture,' I have stated what seems, at first, the reverse of what I am saying now; namely, that it is better to have one grand building than any number of mean ones. And that is true: but you cannot command grandeur by size till you can command grace in minuteness; and least of all, remember, will you so command it to-day, when magnitude has become the chief exponent of folly and misery, coördinate in the fraternal enormities of the Factory and Poorhouse,—the Barracks and Hospital. And the final law in this matter is that, if you require edifices only for the grace and health of mankind, and build them without pretense and without chicanery, they will be sublime on a modest scale, and lovely with little decoration.