Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14: The New Era — John Ruskin, Part 1

BY G.

MERCER ADAM.

What John Ruskin has done in a prosaic, commercial, and Philistine age, in teaching the world to love and study the Beautiful, in opening to it the hidden mysteries and delights of art, and in inciting the passion for taking pleasure in and even possessing embodiments of it, that age owes to the great prose-poet and enthusiastic author of "Modern Painters."

Neither before nor since his day has literature known such a passionate and luminous exponent of Nature's beauties, such an inculcator in men's minds of the art of observing her ways and methods, or one who has given the world such deep insight into what constitutes the true and the beautiful in art.

For these things, and for opening new worlds of instruction and delight to his age in the realm of art, heightened by the charm of his marvellous prose, we can readily pardon Ruskin for his weaknesses and perverseness,--for his dogmatisms, his fervors, and ecstasies, his exaggerations of praise and blame, and even for the missionary propagation of his often unsound economic gospel, valuable though it may be in illustrating and enforcing morality in its aesthetic aspect.

Despite his enemies, and all that the critics have said contradicting his theories, Ruskin was a surprise and a revelation to his time.

In not a little of all that he said and did, it is true, we cannot concur; nor can we fail to see the errors he fell into through his want of reserve and his headlong haste to say and do the things he said and did; nevertheless, he was a great and inspiring teacher in things that appeal to our sense of the beautiful, and earnest in his zeal to raise men's intellectual and moral standard of life.

Like most enthusiasts and geniuses, he had, now and then, his hours of reaction, waywardness, and gloom; but there was much that was noble and ennobling in the man, as well as rich and fructifying in his thought.

Even in his social and moral exhortations, tinctured as they are with medievalism, and however much we may here again disagree with him, he had much that was uplifting and inspiring to say to his time,--a time that had great need of his apostolic counsellings and his fervent inculcations of morality, industry, religion, and humanity.

Throughout Mr. Ruskin's works--and they are amazingly manifold--a strong and intense purpose runs, given to the highest and noblest ends; and though their author at times wearies his reader by his diffuseness and his digressions, and to some is almost fanatical in his reverence for art, he is ever imaginative and eloquent, and has created for us a new, instructive, and uniquely fresh and thoughtful body of art-literature.

The truth of infinite value he teaches is "realism,"--the doctrine that all truth and beauty are to be attained by a reverent and faithful study of nature, and not, as a reviewer expresses it, "by substituting vague forms, bred by imagination on the mists of feeling, in place of definite, substantial reality.

The thorough acceptance of this doctrine would remould our life; and he who teaches its application, even to any single department of human activity, and with such power as Mr. Ruskin's, is a prophet for his generation."

In all his various labors and aims, Mr. Ruskin set before himself a high, if somewhat quixotic, ideal of life, and with great earnestness did much, not only for the elevation of his fellow-men, but for the development of sound artistic taste and the enriching and spiritualizing of life by seeking to surround it at all times with the true and the beautiful, and with the old-time virtues of purity, manliness, and courage.

Among the "Beacon Lights" of the age there can be no question that Ruskin is worthy of an exalted place, since few men of our modern time, rich as it is in eminent thinkers and writers, has done more than he to illumine the many subjects with which he has so fascinatingly dealt,--and that not only in art and its cult of the Beautiful, but in ethics, education, and political economy.

The energies, activities, and impulses he constantly put forth, as well as the high principles that ever guided him in his earnest endeavor to improve the intellectual and moral condition of his kind, mark his era as a great artistic epoch in the onward and upward progress of the race.

By stimulus, suggestion, and inspiration he has powerfully influenced his time, though manifestly not a little of the seed he abundantly and hopefully scattered has fallen upon barren ground.

Nevertheless, where the seed has fallen and germinated, the yield has been large: "his spirit has passed far wider than he ever knew or conceived; and his words, flung to the winds, have borne fruit a hundredfold in lands that he never thought of or designed to reach."

With what pride and gratitude should not the age regard him and his memory,--one who has quickened the sensibilities of men in looking upon nature; opened our dull eyes to its manifold beauties; made plain to the average intelligence what Art is and stands for; implanted in our souls worship of the beautiful; shown working-men how to use their tools in the highest interests of their craft, and taught maidens what and how to read as well as how and in what spirit to sew and cook.

The world too often acknowledges its true teachers and prophets only when it begins to build them some belated tomb.

"This, at any rate," gratefully exclaims Frederic Harrison,[1] "we will not suffer to be done to John Ruskin."

[Footnote 1: Written by Mr. F.

H.

on Professor Ruskin's eightieth birthday (February 8, 1899).

] "We may all of us recall to-day with love and gratitude the enormous mass of stirring thoughts and melodious speech about a thousand things, divine and human, beautiful and good, which for a whole half-century the author of 'Modern Painters' has given to the world.

They cover every phase of nature, every type of art, of history, society, economics, religion; the past and the future; all rules of human duty, whether personal or social, domestic or national....

He spake to us of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon unto the hyssop on the wall; he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.

He has put new beauty for us into the sky and the clouds and the rainbow, into the seas at rest or in storm, into the mountains and into the lakes, into the flowers and the grass, into crystals and gems, into the mightiest ruins of past ages, and into the humblest rose upon a cottage wall.

He has done for the Alps and the cathedrals of Italy and France, for Venice and Florence, what Byron did for Greece.

We look upon them all now with new and more searching eyes.

Whole schools of art, entire ages of old workmanship, the very soul of the Middle Age, have been revealed with a new inspiration and transfigured in a more mysterious light.

Poetry, Greek sculpture, mediaeval worship, commercial morality, the training of the young, the nobility of industry, the purity of the home,--a thousand things that make up the joy and soundness of human life have been irradiated by the flashing searchlight of one ardent soul: irradiated, let us say, as this dazzling ray shot round the horizon, glancing from heaven to earth, and touching the gloom with fire.

We need not, even to-day, be tempted from truth, or pretend that the light is permanent or complete.

It has long ceased to flash round the welkin, and its very scintillations have disturbed our true vision.

But we remember still its dazzling power and its revelation of things that our eyes had not seen.

"What we especially love to dwell on to-day is this: that in all this unrivalled volume of printed thoughts, in this encyclopaedic range of topic by this most voluminous and most versatile of modern writers [may we not say of all English writers?

] there is not one line that is base, or coarse, or frivolous; not a sentence that was framed in envy, malice, wantonness, or cruelty; not one piece that was written to win money, or popularity, or promotion; not a line composed for any selfish end or in any trivial mood.

Think what we may of this enormous library of print, we know that every word of it was put forth of set purpose without any hidden aim, utterly without fear, and wholly without guile; to make the world a little better, to guide, inspire, and teach men, come what might, scoff as they would, turn from him as they chose, though they left him alone, a broken old man crying in the wilderness, with none to hear or to care.

They might think it all utterly vain; we may think much of it was in vain: but it was always the very heart's blood of a rare genius and a noble soul."

Before entering, somewhat in detail, into Ruskin's vast and varied labors, let us briefly outline the scope and character of the work which gave the art critic and prophet of his time his chief fame.

The personal incidents in his life need not detain us at the outset, as they are not specially eventful, and may be more fully gathered from the excellent "Life" of Ruskin, by his friend and some-time secretary, W. G.

Collingwood, or from the delightfully interesting reminiscences by the master himself in his autobiographic "Praeterita," published near the close of his long, arduous, and fruitful career.

John Ruskin was born in London on the 8th of February, 1819. He was of Scotch ancestry, his father being a prosperous wine merchant in London, who acquired considerable wealth in trade, which the son in time inherited, and nobly used in his many private benevolences and philanthropic enterprises.

The comfortable circumstances in which he was born, coupled with his father's own love of pictures and books, were helpful in giving encouragement and direction to the young student's studies and tastes.

His mother, a deeply religious woman, was, moreover, influential in implanting the serious element in Ruskin's character and life, and in familiarizing him with the Bible, whose noble English, in King James' version, manifestly entered early into the youth's ardent, prophetic soul, and, as a writer, had much to do in forming his magnificent prose style.

Ruskin was in early years--indeed, far on in his manhood--in delicate health, and consequently he was educated privately till he passed to Christ Church College, Oxford, where, at the age of twenty, he won the Newdigate prize for verse, and graduated in 1842. His taste for art was manifested at an early age, and after passing from the university he studied painting under J. D.

Harding and Copley Fielding;

but his masters, as he tells us in "Praeterita," were Rubens and Rembrandt.

At the outset of his career Ruskin, as is well known, was led to take up a defence of J. M. W.

Turner (1775-1851) and the contemporary school of English landscape-painting against the foreign trammels, which had fastened themselves upon modern art, and especially to prove the superiority of modern landscape-painters over the old masters.

This revolutionary opinion, though at first it was hotly contested, established the new critic's position as a writer on art, and the defence, or exposition rather, grew into the famous work called "Modern Painters" (5 vols.

, 1843-60).

This elaborate work deals with general aesthetic principles, and, notwithstanding its occasional extravagances, alike of praise and censure, its charm is irresistible, presenting us with its brilliant and original author's ideas of beauty, to which he freshly and powerfully awakened the world, while enshrining throughout the work the most enchanting word-poems on mountain, leaf, cloud, and sea, which, it is not too much to say, will live forever in English literature.

In the second volume Mr. Ruskin takes up the Italian painters, and discusses at length the merits of their respective schools; in the others, as well as in the work as a whole, we have a body of principles which should govern high art-work, as well as new ideas as to what should constitute the equipment of the painter, and that not only as regards the technique of his art, but in the effect to be produced on the onlooker in viewing the skilled work of one who, above all accomplishments, should be lovingly and intimately in contact with nature.

From the study of painting Mr. Ruskin passed for a time to that of architecture.

In this department we have from his pen "The Seven Lamps of Architecture" (1849) and "The Stones of Venice" (1851-53).

In these two complementary works their author sets forth as in an impressive sermon the new and admonitory lesson that architecture is the exponent of the national characteristics of a people,--the higher and nobler sort exemplifying the religious life and moral virtue in a nation, the debased variety, on the other hand, expressing the ignoble qualities of national vice and shame.

The text of "The Stones" is Venice, and the design of the volumes, in the author's words, is to show that the Gothic architecture of Venice "had arisen out of, and indicated, a state of pure domestic faith and national virtue;" while its renaissance architecture "had arisen out of and indicated a state of concealed national infidelity and domestic corruption."

The earlier work, "The Seven Lamps,"--the Lamp of Sacrifice, of Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory, Obedience,--looks upon architecture "as the revealing medium or lamp through which flame a people's passions,--the embodiment of their polity, life, history, and religious faith in temple and palace, mart and home."

Akin to these two eloquent works, in which their author thoughtfully sets forth the civic virtues and moral tone, as well as the debased characteristics, by which architecture is produced at certain eras in a people's life, is the earlier volume on "The Poetry of Architecture" (1837), which discusses the relation between architecture and its setting of landscape or other environment, illustrated by examples drawn from regions he had visited,--the English Lakeland, France, Switzerland, Spain, and northern Italy.

After these works followed lectures on drawing, perspective, decoration, and manufacture, with later theories (crotchets, some have impiously called them) on political economy, Pre-Raphaelitism, _et cetera_, with a flood of opinions on social, ethical, and art subjects, enriched by rare intellectual gifts and much religious fervor.

Ruskin's whole writings form a body of literature unique of its kind, pervaded with great charm of literary style, and inspired by a high moral purpose.

Ruskin's excursions into non-aesthetic fields, and the strange jumble of Christian communism to which, late in life, he gave vehement expression, it must be honestly admitted, have detracted much from his early fame.

In everything he wrote the Ruskinian spirit comes strongly out, colored with an amiable egotism and enforced by great assurance of conviction.

The moral purpose he had in view, and the charm and elevated tone of his writings, lead us to forget the wholly ideal state of society he sought to introduce, while we are won to the man by the passion of his noble enthusiasms.

Like Carlyle and Emerson, Ruskin was by his parents intended for the ministry; but for the ministry he had himself no inclination.

The broadening out early of his mind and the freeing of his thought on doctrinal subjects, which took him far from the narrow evangelicalism of his youth, made the ministry of the church repugnant to him, though he was always a deeply religious man and a force ever making for righteousness.

At the same time, he numbered many divines among his most cherished friends, and he frequently, and with admitted edification, was to be found in chapel and church.

Meanwhile he continued busily to educate himself for whatever profession he might choose or drift into, supplemented by such fitful periods of schooling as his delicate health permitted, as well as by many jaunts with his parents to the English lakes and other parts of the kingdom, and by frequent tours on the Continent, especially in Italy and Switzerland.

Before he arrived at his teens, young Ruskin had composed much, both in prose and verse, and he early manifested an aptitude for drawing, as well as a decided taste for art, which, it is said, was in some measure incited by the gift, from a partner of his father, of a copy of the poet Rogers' "Italy," with engravings by Turner.

Nor, early in manhood, did he escape a youth's fond dream of love, for as a worshipper of beauty, and an enthusiast of the "Wizard of the North," we find him drawn tenderly to a daughter of Lockhart, editor of the "Quarterly Review," a grandchild of his famous countryman, Sir Walter Scott.

The affair, however, though encouraged by his parents, who longed to see their son settled in life, came to nought, chiefly owing to the young lover's weak physical frame and uncertain health.

Later on, unhappily, he was caught in the toils of another Scottish lass, for whom, it is related, he had written "The King of the Golden River" (1841), and whose rare beauty had readily attracted him.

With her, in 1848, he made an ill-assorted marriage, only to find, some years afterwards, his heart riven and a bitter ingredient dropped into his life's chalice by a fatal defection on the wife's part, she having become enamoured of the then rising young painter, Millais, whom Ruskin had trustingly invited to his house to paint her portrait.

The sequel of the affair is a pitiful one, which Ruskin ever afterward hid deep in his heart, though at the time, finding that the woman was unable to live at the intellectual and spiritual altitude of her loyal husband, the latter, with a magnanimity beyond parallel, pardoned both Millais and the erring one, consented to a divorce, and actually stood by her at the altar as the faithless one took upon herself new vows unto a new husband.

The estrangement and loss of a wife gave Ruskin afresh to Art,--his true and fondly cherished bride.

At this period, as we know, English painting was at a low ebb, mediocre and conventional, though with a show of artificial brilliance.

Ruskin, with his scorn of the artificial and scholastic, threw himself into the work of overturning the established, complacent school of the time, and with splendid enthusiasm and an unfailing belief in himself and his ideas he undertook to reform what had been, and to raise current conceptions of art to a more exalted and lofty plane.

We have seen what he had already achieved in his first dashing period of literary activity, in the production of the early volumes of "Modern Painters," and in his "Seven Lamps" and "Stones of Venice."

While he was at work on the concluding volumes of the first and last of these great books there arose in England the somewhat fantastic movement in art, launched by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which included such Ruskinites and other devotees of early Christian and mediaeval painting as Rossetti, Millais, Morris, Burne-Jones, and Holman Hunt.

Towards this new school of symbolists and affectationists Ruskin was not at first drawn, since it seemed to him unduly idealistic, if not mystic, and smacked not a little, as he thought, of popery.

Later, however, he saw good in it, as a breaking away from academic trammels; while he recognized the earnest enthusiasm of the little band of artists and artist-poets, as well as their technical dexterity and brilliance.

With ready decision as well as with his accustomed zeal for art, Ruskin ended by defending and applauding the new innovators, particularly as their chief motive was the one the master had always strenuously pled for,--adherence to the simplicity of nature.

Their scrupulous attention to detail, characteristic of the Pre-Raphaelites, later on bore good results, even after the Brotherhood fell apart, especially in William Morris's application of their art-principles to household decoration and furnishings.

But for the time the movement was loudly mocked and decried, and perhaps all the more because of Ruskin's espousal of the fervid band, his letters of defence in the London "Times," and his discussion in his booklet on "Pre-Raphaelitism."

Heedless of the outcry, Ruskin pursued his own self-confident course, and by the year 1860 he had completed his "Modern Painters," and, in spite of objurgation and detraction, had won a great name for himself as a critic and expounder, while expanding himself over almost the whole world of art.