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Outlines of English and American Literature
John Ruskin
by Long, William J.
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The prose of Ruskin is a treasure house. Nature portrayed as everyman's
Holy Land; descriptions of mountain or landscape, and more beautiful
descriptions of leaf or lichen or the glint of light on a breaking wave;
appreciations of literature, and finer appreciations of life itself;
startling views of art, and more revolutionary views of that frightful
waste of human life and labor which we call political economy,--all these
and many more impressions of nature, art and human society are eloquently
recorded in the ten thousand pages which are the work of Ruskin's hand.
If you would know the secret that binds all his work together, it may be
expressed in two words, sensitiveness and sincerity. From childhood Ruskin
was extremely sensitive to both beauty and ugliness. The beauty of the
world and of all noble things that ever were accomplished in the world
affected him like music; but he shrank, as if from a blow, from all
sordidness and evil, from the mammon-worship of trade, from the cloud of
smoke that hung over a factory district as if trying to shield from the eye
of heaven so much needless poverty and aimless toil below. So Ruskin was a
man halting between two opinions: the artist in him was forever troubled by
the reformer seeking to make the crooked places of life straight and its
rough places plain. He made as many mistakes as another man; in his pages
you may light upon error or vagary; but you will find nothing to make you
doubt his entire sincerity, his desire to speak truth, his passion for
helping his fellow men.
Life
The early training of Ruskin may explain both the strength
and the weakness of his work. His father was a wealthy wine
merchant, his mother a devout woman with puritanic ideas of duty.
Both parents were of Scottish and, as Ruskin boasted, of plebeian
descent. They had but one child, and in training him they used a
strange mixture of severity and coddling, of wisdom and nonsense.
The young Ruskin was kept apart from other boys and from the sports
which breed a modesty of one's own opinion; his time, work and
lonely play were minutely regulated; the slightest infringement of
rules brought the stern discipline of rod or reproof. On the other
hand he was given the best pictures and the best books; he was
taken on luxurious journeys through England and the Continent; he
was furnished with tutors for any study to which he turned his
mind. When he went up to Oxford, at seventeen, he knew many things
which are Greek to the ordinary boy, but was ignorant of almost
everything that a boy knows, and that a man finds useful in dealing
with the world.
Training and its Results
There were several results of this early discipline. One was
Ruskin's devotion to art, which came from his familiarity with
pictures and galleries; another was his minute study of natural
objects, which were to him in place of toys; a third was his habit
of "speaking his mind" on every subject; a fourth was his rhythmic
prose style, which came largely from his daily habit of memorizing
the Bible. Still another result of his lonely magnificence, in
which he was deprived of boys' society, was that his affection went
out on a flood tide of romance to the first attractive girl he met.
So he loved, and was laughed at, and was desperately unhappy. Then
he married, not the woman of his choice, but one whom his parents
picked out for him. The tastes of the couple were hopelessly
different; the end was estrangement, with humiliation and sorrow
for Ruskin.
Twenty Years of Art
At twenty-four he produced his first important work, Modern
Painters (1843), which he began as a defense of the neglected
artist Turner. This controversial book led Ruskin to a deeper study
of his subject, which resulted in four more volumes on modern
painting. Before these were completed he had "fairly created a new
literature of art" by his Seven Lamps of Architecture and
Stones of Venice. He was appointed professor of fine arts at
Oxford; he gave several series of lectures which appeared later as
Lectures on Architecture and Painting, Michael Angelo and
Tintoret, Val d'Arno and The Art of England.
By this time he was renowned as an art critic; but his theories
were strongly opposed and he was continually in hot water. In his
zeal to defend Turner or Millais or Burne-Jones he was rather
slashing in his criticism of other artists. The libel suit brought
against him by Whistler, whom he described as a coxcomb who flung a
pot of paint in the face of the public, is still talked about in
England. The jury (fancy a jury wrestling with a question of art!)
found Ruskin guilty, and decided that he should pay for the
artist's damaged reputation the sum of one farthing. Whistler ever
afterwards wore the coin on his watch chain.
Ruskin the Reformer
It was about the year 1860 that Ruskin came under the influence of
Carlyle, and then began the effort at social reform which made
wreck of fame and hope and peace of mind. Carlyle had merely
preached of manual work; but Ruskin, wholehearted in whatever he
did, went out to mend roads and do other useful tasks to show his
belief in the doctrine. Carlyle railed against the industrial
system of England; but Ruskin devoted his fortune to remedying its
evils. He established model tenements; he founded libraries and
centers of recreation for workingmen; he took women and children
out of factories and set them to spinning or weaving in their own
homes; he founded St. George's Guild, a well-housed community which
combined work with education, and which shared profits fairly among
the workers.
England at first rubbed its eyes at these reforms, then shrugged
its shoulders as at a harmless kind of madman. But Ruskin had the
temper of a crusader; his sword was out against what was even then
called "vested interests," and presently his theories aroused a
tempest of opposition. Thackeray, who as editor of the Cornhill
Magazine had gladly published Ruskin's first economic essays,
was forced by the clamor of readers to discontinue the series.
[Footnote: While these essays were appearing, there was published
(1864) a textbook of English literature. It spoke well of Ruskin's
books of art, but added, "Of late he has lost his way and has
written things--papers in the Cornhill chiefly--which are
not likely to add to his fame as a writer or to his character as a
man of common sense" (Collier, History of English
Literature, p. 512).] To this reform period belong Unto This
Last and other books dealing with political economy, and also
Sesame and Lilies, Crown of Wild Olive and Ethics
of the Dust, which were written chiefly for young people.
End of the Crusade
For twenty years this crusade continued; then, worn out and
misunderstood by both capitalists and workingmen, Ruskin retired
(1879) to a small estate called "Brantwood" in the Lake District,
His fortune had been spent in his attempt to improve labor
conditions, and he lived now upon the modest income from his books.
Before he died, in 1900, his friend Charles Eliot Norton persuaded
him to write the story of his early life in Pręterita. The
title is strange, but the book itself is, with one exception, the
most interesting of Ruskin's works.
Works of Ruskin
The works of Ruskin fall naturally into three classes,
which are called criticisms of art, industry and life, but which are, in
fact, profound studies of the origin and meaning of art on the one hand,
and of the infinite value of human life on the other.
The most popular of his art criticisms are St. Mark's Rest and
Mornings in Florence, which are widely used as guidebooks, and which
may be postponed until the happy time when, in Venice or Florence, one may
read them to best advantage. Meanwhile, in Seven Lamps of
Architecture or Stones of Venice or the first two volumes of
Modern Painters, one may grow acquainted with Ruskin's theory of
art.
His Theory of Art
His fundamental principle was summarized by Pope in the line, "All nature
is but art unknown to thee." That nature is the artist's source of
inspiration, that art at its best can but copy some natural beauty, and
that the copy should be preceded by careful and loving study of the
original,--this was the sum of his early teaching. Next, Ruskin looked
within the soul of the artist and announced that true art has a spiritual
motive, that it springs from the noblest ideals of life, that the moral
value of any people may be read in the pictures or buildings which they
produced. A third principle was that the best works of art, reflecting as
they do the ideals of a community, should belong to the people, not to a
few collectors; and a fourth exalted the usefulness of art in increasing
not only the pleasure but the power of life. So Ruskin urged that art be
taught in all schools and workshops, and that every man be encouraged to
put the stamp of beauty as well as of utility upon the work of his hands;
so also he formulated a plan to abolish factories, and by a system of hand
labor to give every worker the chance and the joy of self-expression.
Theory of Economics
In his theory of economics Ruskin was even more revolutionary. He wrote
several works on the subject, but the sum of his teaching may be found in
Unto This Last; and the sum is that political economy is merely
commercial economy; that it aims to increase trade and wealth at the
expense of men and morals. "There is no wealth but life," announced Ruskin,
"life including all its power of love, of joy and of admiration." And with
minute exactness he outlined a plan for making the nation wealthy, not by
more factories and ships, but by increasing the health and happiness of
human beings.
Three quarters of a century earlier Thomas Jefferson, in America, had
pleaded for the same ideal of national wealth, and had characterized the
race of the nations for commercial supremacy as a contagion of insanity.
Jefferson was called a demagogue, Ruskin a madman; but both men were
profoundly right in estimating the wealth of a nation by its store of
happiness for home consumption rather than by its store of goods for
export. They were misunderstood because they were too far in advance of
their age to speak its trade language. They belong not to the past or
present, but to the future.
For Young Readers
If but one work of Ruskin is to be read, let it be Sesame and Lilies
(1865), which is one of the books that no intelligent reader can afford to
neglect. The first chapter, "Of Kings' Treasuries," is a noble essay on the
subject of reading. The second, "Of Queens' Gardens," is a study of woman's
life and education, a study which may appear old-fashioned now, but which
has so much of truth and beauty that it must again, like Colonial
furniture, become our best fashion. These two essays [Footnote: A third
essay, "The Mystery of Life," was added to Sesame and Lilies. It is
a sad, despairing monologue, and the book might be better off without it.]
contain Ruskin's best thought on books and womanly character, and also an
outline of his teaching on nature, art and society. If we read Sesame
and Lilies in connection with two other little books, Crown of Wild
Olive, which treats of work, trade and war, and Ethics of the
Dust, which deals with housekeeping, we shall have the best that Ruskin
produced for his younger disciples.
The Quality of Ruskin
To the sensitiveness and sincerity of Ruskin we have
already called attention. There is a third quality which appears
frequently, and which we call pedagogical insistence, because the author
seems to labor under the impression that he must drive something into one's
head.
This insistent note is apt to offend readers until they learn of Ruskin's
motive and experience. He lived in a commercial age, an age that seemed to
him blind to the beauty of the world; and the purpose of his whole life
was, as he said, to help those who, having eyes, see not. His aim was high,
his effort heroic; but for all his pains he was called a visionary, a man
with a dream book. Yet he was always exact and specific. He would say, "Go
to a certain spot at a certain hour, look in a certain direction, and such
and such beauties shall ye see." And people would go, and wag their heads,
and declare that no such prospect as Ruskin described was visible to mortal
eyes. [Footnote: For example, Ruskin gave in Fors Clavigera a
description of a beautiful view from a bridge over the Ettrick, in
Scotland. Some people have sought that view in vain, and a recent critic
insists that it is invisible (Andrew Lang, History of English
Literature, p. 592). In Venice or Florence you may still meet travelers
with one of Ruskin's books in hand, peering about for the beauty which he
says is apparent from such and such a spot and which every traveler ought
to see.]
Naturally Ruskin, with his dogmatic temper, grew impatient of such
blindness; hence the increasing note of insistence, of scolding even, to
which critics have called attention. But we can forgive much in a writer
who, with marvelously clear vision, sought only to point out the beauty of
nature and the moral dignity of humanity.
Ruskin's Style
The beauty of Ruskin's style, its musical rhythm or cadence, its wealth of
figure and allusion, its brilliant coloring, like a landscape of his
favorite artist Turner,--all this is a source of pleasure to the reader,
entirely aside from the subject matter. Read, for example, the description
of St. Mark's Cathedral in Stones of Venice, or the reflected
glories of nature in Pręterita, or the contrast between Salisbury
towers and Giotto's campanile in Seven Lamps of Architecture, and
see there descriptive eloquence at its best. That this superb eloquence was
devoted not to personal or party ends, but to winning men to the love of
beauty and truth and right living, is the secret of Ruskin's high place in
English letters and of his enduring influence on English life.
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