The Life of John Ruskin

by W. G. Collingwood

The battles between faith and criticism, between the historical and the scientific attitudes, which had been going on in his mind, were taking a new form. At the outset, we saw, naturalism overpowered respect for tradition—in the first volume of "Modern Painters;" then the historical tendency won the day, in the second volume. Since that time, the critical side had been gathering strength, by his alliance with liberal movements and by his gradual detachment from associations that held him to the older order of thought. As in his lonely journey of 1845 he first took independent ground upon questions of religion and social life, so in 1858, once more travelling alone, he was led by his meditations,—freed from the restraining presence of his parents—to conclusions which he had been all these years evading, yet finding at last inevitable.

He went abroad for a third attempt to write and illustrate his History of Swiss Towns. He spent part of May on the Upper Rhine between Basle and Schaffhausen, June and half of July on the St. Gothard route and at Bellinzona. In reflecting over the sources of Swiss character, as connected with the question of the nature of art and its origin in morality, he was struck with the fact that all the virtues of the Swiss did not make them artistic. Compared with most nations they were as children in painting, music and poetry. And, indeed, they ranked with the early phases of many great nations—the period of pristine simplicity "uncorrupted by the arts."

From Bellinzona he went to Turin on his way to the Vaudois Valleys, where he meant to compare the Waldensian Protestants with the Swiss. Accidentally he saw Paul Veronese's "Queen of Sheba" and other Venetian pictures; and so fell to comparing a period of fully ripened art with one of artlessness; discovering that the mature art, while it appeared at the same time with decay in morals, did not spring from that decay, but was rooted in the virtues of the earlier age. He grasped a clue to the puzzle, in the generalisation that Art is the product of human happiness; it is contrary to asceticism; it is the expression of pleasure. But when the turning point of national progress is once reached, and art is regarded as the laborious incitement to pleasure,—no longer the spontaneous blossom and fruit of it,—the decay sets in for art as for morality. Art, in short, is created by pleasure, not for pleasure. The standard of thought, the attitude of mind, of the Waldensians, he now perceived to be quite impossible for himself. He could not look upon every one outside their fold as heathens and publicans; he could not believe that the pictures of Paul Veronese were works of iniquity, nor that the motives of great deeds in earlier ages were lying superstitions. He took courage to own to himself and others that it was no longer any use trying to identify his point of view with that of Protestantism. He saw both Protestants and Roman Catholics, in the perspective of history, converging into a primitive, far distant, ideal unity of Christianity, in which he still believed; but he could take neither side, after this.

The first statement of the new point of view was, as we said, the Inaugural Lecture of the Cambridge School of Art. The next important utterance was at Manchester, February 22nd, 1859, where he spoke on the "Unity of Art," by which he meant—not the fraternity of handicrafts with painting, as the term is used nowadays—but that, in whatever branch of Art, the spirit of Truth or Sincerity is the same. In this lecture there is a very important passage showing how he had at last got upon firm ground in the question of art and morality: "I do NOT say in the least that in order to be a good painter you must be a good man; but I do say that in order to be a good natural painter there must be strong elements of good in the mind, however warped by other parts of the character." So emphatic a statement deserves more attention than it has received from readers and writers who assume to judge Ruskin's views after a slight acquaintance with his earlier works. He was well aware himself that his mind had been gradually enlarging, and his thoughts changing; and he soon saw as great a difference between himself at forty and at twenty-five, as he had formerly seen between the Boy poet and the Art critic. He became as anxious to forget his earlier books, as he had been to forget his verse-writing; and when he came to collect his "Works," these lectures, under the title of "The Two Paths," were (with "The Political Economy of Art") the earliest admitted into the library.

After this Manchester lecture he took a driving tour in Yorkshire—posting in the old-fashioned way—halting at Bradford for the lecture on "Modern Manufacture and Design" (March 1st), and ending with a visit to the school at Winnington, of which more in a later chapter.

In 1859 the last Academy Notes, for the time being, were published. The Pre-Raphaelite cause had been fully successful, and the new school of naturalist landscape was rapidly asserting itself. Old friends were failing, such as Stanfield, Lewis, and Roberts: but new men were growing up, among whom Ruskin welcomed G.D. Leslie, F. Goodall, J.C. Hook,—who had come out of his "Pre-Raphaelite measles" into the healthy naturalism of "Luff Boy!"—Clarence Whaite, Henry Holiday, and John Brett, who showed the "Val d'Aosta." Millais' "Vale of Rest" was the picture which attracted most notice: something of the old rancour against the school was revived in the Morning Herald, which called his works "impertinences," "contemptible," "indelible disgrace," and so on. It was the beginning of a transition from the delicacy of the Pre-Raphaelite Millais to his later style; and as such the preacher of "All great art is delicate" could not entirely defend it. But the serious strength of the imagination and the power of the execution he praised with unexpected warmth.

He then started on the last tour abroad with his parents. He had been asked, rather pointedly, by the National Gallery Commission, whether he had seen the great German museums, and had been obliged to reply that he had not. Perhaps it occurred to him or to his father that he ought to see the pictures at Berlin and Dresden and Munich, even though he heartily disliked the Germans with their art and their language and everything that belonged to them,—except Holbein and Dürer. By the end of July the travellers were in North Switzerland; and they spent September in Savoy, returning home by October 7th.

Old Mr. Ruskin was now in his seventy-fifth year and his desire was to see the great work finished before he died. There had been some attempt to write this last volume of "Modern Painters" in the previous winter, but it had been put off until after the visit to Germany had completed a study of the great Venetian painters—especially Titian and Veronese. Now at last, in the autumn of 1859, he finally set to work on the writing.

The assertion of Turner's genius had been necessary in 1843, but Turner was long since dead; his fame was thoroughly vindicated; his bequest to the nation dealt with, so far as possible. Early Christian Art was recognised—almost beyond its claims. The Pre-Raphaelites and naturalistic landscapists no longer needed the hand which "Modern Painters" had held out to them by the way. Of the great triad of Venice, Tintoret had been expounded, Veronese and Titian were now taken up and treated with tardy, but ample recognition.

And now, after twenty years of labour, Ruskin had established himself as the recognised leader of criticism and the exponent of painting and architecture. He had created a department of literature all his own. He had enriched the art of England with examples of a new and beautiful draughtsmanship, and the language with passages of poetic description and eloquent declamation, quite, in their way, unrivalled. He had built up a theory of art, so far uncontested; and thrown new light on the Middle Ages and Renaissance, illustrating, in a way then novel, their chronicles by their remains. He had beaten down opposition, risen above detraction, and won the prize of honour—only to realise, as he received it, that the fight had been but a pastime tournament, after all; and to hear, through the applause, the enemy's trumpet sounding to battle. For now, without the camp, there were realities to face; as to Art—"the best in this kind are but shadows."