Lectures on Art, Delivered Before the University of Oxford in Hilary Term, 1870

by John Ruskin

127. I read you these words, chiefly that Sir Joshua, who founded, as first President, the Academical schools of English painting, in these well-known discourses, may also begin, as he has truest right to do, our system of instruction in this University. But secondly, I read them that I may press on your attention these singular words, "painful and humiliating exactness." Singular, as expressing the first conditions of the study required from his pupils by the master, who, of all men except Velasquez, seems to have painted with the greatest ease. It is true that he asks this pain, this humiliation, only from youths who intend to follow the profession of artists. But if you wish yourselves to know anything of the practice of art, you must not suppose that because your study will be more desultory than that of Academy students, it may therefore be less accurate. The shorter the time you have to give, the more careful you should be to spend it profitably; and I would not wish you to devote one hour to the practice of drawing, unless you are resolved to be informed in it of all that in an hour can be taught.

128. I speak of the practice of drawing only; though elementary study of modelling may perhaps some day be advisably connected with it; but I do not wish to disturb, or amuse, you with a formal statement of the manifold expectations I have formed respecting your future work. You will not, I am sure, imagine that I have begun without a plan, nor blame my reticence as to the parts of it which cannot yet be put into execution, and which there may occur reason afterwards to modify. My first task must unquestionably be to lay before you right and simple methods of drawing and colouring.

I use the word "colouring" without reference to any particular vehicle of colour, for the laws of good painting are the same, whatever liquid is employed to dissolve the pigments. But the technical management of oil is more difficult than that of water-colour, and the impossibility of using it with safety among books or prints, and its unavailableness for note-book sketches and memoranda, are sufficient reasons for not introducing it in a course of practice intended chiefly for students of literature. On the contrary, in the exercises of artists, oil should be the vehicle of colour employed from the first. The extended practice of water-colour painting, as a separate skill, is in every way harmful to the arts: its pleasant slightness and plausible dexterity divert the genius of the painter from its proper aims, and withdraw the attention of the public from excellence of higher claim; nor ought any man, who has the consciousness of ability for good work, to be ignorant of, or indolent in employing, the methods of making its results permanent as long as the laws of Nature allow. It is surely a severe lesson to us in this matter, that the best works of Turner could not be shown to the public for six months without being destroyed,—and that his most ambitious ones for the most part perished, even before they could be shown. I will break through my law of reticence, however, so far as to tell you that I have hope of one day interesting you greatly (with the help of the Florentine masters), in the study of the arts of moulding and painting porcelain; and to induce some of you to use your future power of patronage in encouraging the various branches of this art, and turning the attention of the workmen of Italy from the vulgar tricks of minute and perishable mosaic to the exquisite subtilties of form and colour possible in the perfectly ductile, afterwards unalterable clay. And one of the ultimate results of such craftsmanship might be the production of pictures as brilliant as painted glass,—as delicate as the most subtle water-colours, and more permanent than the Pyramids.

129. And now to begin our own work. In order that we may know how rightly to learn to draw and to paint, it will be necessary, will it not, that we know first what we are to aim at doing;—what kind of representation of nature is best?

I will tell you in the words of Lionardo. "That is the most praiseworthy painting which has most conformity with the thing represented," "quella pittura e piu laudabile, la quale ha piu conformita con la cosa mitata," (ch. 276). In plain terms, "the painting which is likest nature is the best." And you will find by referring to the preceding chapter, "come lo specchio e maestro de' pittori," how absolutely Lionardo means what he says. Let the living thing, (he tells us,) be reflected in a mirror, then put your picture beside the reflection, and match the one with the other. And indeed, the very best painting is unquestionably so like the mirrored truth, that all the world admits its excellence. Entirely first-rate work is so quiet and natural that there can be no dispute over it; you may not particularly admire it, but you will find no fault with it. Second-rate painting pleases one person much, and displeases another; but first-rate painting pleases all a little, and intensely pleases those who can recognise its unostentatious skill.

130. This, then, is what we have first got to do—to make our drawing look as like the thing we have to draw as we can.

Now, all objects are seen by the eye as patches of colour of a certain shape, with gradations of colour within them. And, unless their colours be actually luminous, as those of the sun, or of fire, these patches of different hues are sufficiently imitable, except so far as they are seen stereoscopically. You will find Lionardo again and again insisting on the stereoscopic power of the double sight: but do not let that trouble you; you can only paint what you can see from one point of sight, but that is quite enough. So seen, then, all objects appear to the human eye simply as masses of colour of variable depth, texture, and outline. The outline of any object is the limit of its mass, as relieved against another mass. Take a crocus, and lay it on a green cloth. You will see it detach itself as a mere space of yellow from the green behind it, as it does from the grass. Hold it up against the window—you will see it detach itself as a dark space against the white or blue behind it. In either case its outline is the limit of the space of light or dark colour by which it expresses itself to your sight. That outline is therefore infinitely subtle—not even a line, but the place of a line, and that, also, made soft by texture. In the finest painting it is therefore slightly softened; but it is necessary to be able to draw it with absolute sharpness and precision. The art of doing this is to be obtained by drawing it as an actual line, which art is to be the subject of our immediate enquiry; but I must first lay the divisions of the entire subject completely before you.

131. I have said that all objects detach themselves as masses of colour. Usually, light and shade are thought of as separate from colour; but the fact is that all nature is seen as a mosaic composed of gradated portions of different colours, dark or light. There is no difference in the quality of these colours, except as affected by texture. You will constantly hear lights and shades spoken of as if these were different in their nature, and to be painted in different ways. But every light is a shadow compared to higher lights, till we reach the brightness of the sun; and every shadow is a light compared to lower shadows, till we reach the darkness of night.

Every colour used in painting, except pure white and black, is therefore a light and shade at the same time. It is a light with reference to all below it, and a shade with reference to all above it.

132. The solid forms of an object, that is to say, the projections or recessions of its surface within the outline, are, for the most part, rendered visible by variations in the intensity or quantity of light falling on them. The study of the relations between the quantities of this light, irrespectively of its colour, is the second division of the regulated science of painting.