Modern Painters, Volume 2

Front Cover
Routledge, 1856 - ART - 402 pages
John Ruskin was the most influential art critic during the Victorian period. His five volume book Modern Painters was written in opposition against art critics who were opposed to the paintings of J.M.W. Turner. Ruskin was a collector of Turner's works and the two were friends. In his writings, Ruskin was a harsh critic towards classical art, and believe that the landscape paintings of Turner and others demonstrated a superior understanding of "truth."

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Contents

Of the Theoretic Faculty as concerned with Pleasures of Sense 1 Explanation of the term Theoretic
11
Use of the terms Temperate and Intemperate
12
Grounds of inferiority in the pleasures which are subjects of intemperance
13
Evidence of higher rank in pleasures of sight and hearing
14
How the lower pleasures may be elevated in rank
15
How degraded by heartless reception
16
How exalted by affection
17
Of the false opinion that Beauty depends on the Association of Ideas
31
Apparent Proportion in lines
59
The necessity to repose of an implied energy
65
Originally derived from conditions of matter
74
Perfect Beauty of Surface in what consisting
75
Energy how expressed by purity of matter
76
Spirituality how so expressed
77
Of Moderation or the Type of Government by Law 1 Meaning of the terms Chasteness and Refinement
78
Finish by great masters esteemed essential
80
It is the girdle of Beauty
81
How difficult of attainment yet essential to all good
82
General Inferences respecting Typical Beauty 1 The subject incompletely treated yet admitting of general conclusions
83
Typical Beauty not created for mans sake
84
Of Vital Beauty I Of Relative Vital Beauty 1 Transition from typical to vital Beauty
86
The perfection of the Theoretic faculty as concerned with vital Beauty is Charity
87
Only with respect to plants less affection than sympathy
88
Which is proportioned to the appearance of Energy in the Plants
89
This sympathy is unselfish and does not regard utility
90
Especially with respect to animals
91
The second perfection of the Theoretic faculty as concerned with life is justice of moral judgment
92
How impeded
93
The influence of moral expression
94
As also in plants
95
Recapitulation
96
II Of Generic Vital Beauty 1 The beauty of fulfilment of appointed function in every animal
98
The two senses of the word Ideal Either it refers to action of the imagination
99
Or to perfection of type
100
Of Ideal form First in the lower animals
101
Ideal form in vegetables
102
Admits of variety in the Ideal of the former
103
Instance in the Soldanella and Ranunculus
104
The Beauty of repose and felicity how consistent with such Ideal
105
The ideality of art
106
III Of Vital Beauty in Man 1 Condition of the human creature entirely different from that of the lower animals
108
How the conception of the bodily Ideal is reached
109
Modifications of the bodily Ideal owing to influence of mind First Of Intellect
110
What beauty is bestowed by them
112
Is a sign of Gods kind purpose towards the race
113
Consequent separation and difference of Ideals
114
The effects of the Adamite curse are to be distinguished from signs of its immediate activity
115
Ideal form is only to be obtained by portraiture
116
Evil results of opposite practice in modern times
117
Ideal form to be reached only by Love
118
Expressions chiefly destructive of Ideal Character First Pride
119
Secondly Sensuality
120
How connected with impurity of colour
121
Rubens Correggio and Guido
122
Thirdly Ferocity and Fear The latter how to be distinguished from Awe
123
Ferocity is joined always with Fear Its unpardonableness
124
Of passion generally
126
Recapitulation
127
General Conclusions respecting the Theoretic Faculty 1 There are no sources of the emotion of Beauty more than those found in things visible
129
tion removable
130
What objections may be made to this conclusion
131
How interrupted by false feeling
132
Greatness and truth are sometimes by the Deity sustained and spoken in and through Evil men
133
The second objection arising from the coldness of Christian men to external Beauty
134
Reasons for this coldness in the anxieties of the world These anxieties overwrought and criminal
135
Characteristics of Composition
144
Imagination not yet manifested
145
Imagination associative is the corelative conception of imperfect com ponent parts
146
The grasp and dignity of Imagination
147
Its limits
148
How manifested in treatment of uncertain relations Its deficiency illustrated
149
Laws of art the safeguard of the unimaginative
150
The monotony of unimaginative treatment
151
Imagination never repeats itself
152
Instances of absence of Imagination Claude Gaspar Poussin
153
Its presence Salvator Nicolo Poussin Titian Tintoret
154
And Turner
155
The sign of imaginative work is its appearance of absolute truth
156
Of Imagination Penetrative 1 Imagination penetrative is concerned not with the combining but the apprehending of things
158
The Imagination seizes always by the innermost point
159
It acts intuitively and without reasoning
160
Absence of Imagination how shown
161
Fancy how involved with Imagination
163
Fancy is never serious
164
Fancy restless
165
And suggestive of the Imagination
166
Imagination addresses itself to Imagination
168
The Annunciation
169
The Baptism of Christ Its treatment by various painters
170
By Tintoret
171
The Crucifixion
172
The Massacre of the Innocents
174
Various works in the Scuola di San Rocco
175
The Last Judgment How treated by various painters
176
By Tintoret
177
The imaginative Verity how distinguished from realism
178
Bandinelli Canova Mino da Fiesole
179
Recapitulation The perfect function of the Imagination is the in tuitive perception of Ultimate Truth
182
Imagination how vulgarly understood
183
How its cultivation is dependent on the moral feelings
184
And on habitual reference to nature
185
Of Imagination Contemplative 1 Imagination contemplative is not part of the essence but only a habit or mode of the faculty
186
Is not in itself capable of adding to the charm of fair things
187
But gives to the Imagination its regardant power over them
188
The third office of Fancy distinguished from Imagination contemplative
189
Various instances
191
Morbid or Nervous Fancy
194
Except under narrow limits First Abstract rendering of form without colour
195
Or of both without texture
196
Abstraction of typical representation of animal form
197
Either when it is symbolically used
198
Exception in delicate and superimposed ornament
199
Abstraction necessary from imperfection of materials
200
Exaggeration Its laws and limits First In scale of representation
201
Secondly of things capable of variety of scale
202
Thirdly necessary in expression of characteristic features on dimi nished scale
203
Recapitulation
204
Of the Superhuman Ideal 1 The subject is not to be here treated in detail
205
And these are in or through creature forms familiar to us
206
First of the expression of Inspiration
207
No representation of that which is more than creature is possible
208
Supernatural character expressed by modification of accessaries
209
Landscape of Benozzo Gozzoli
210
Such landscape is not to be imitated
211
Colour and Decoration their use in representations of the Super natural
212
And Colour pure
213
Anatomical development how far admissible
214
Symmetry how valuable
215
Conclusion
216
ADDENDA
219

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Page 88 - One lesson, shepherd, let us two divide, Taught both by what she shows, and what conceals • Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
Page 37 - From God who is our home. Heaven lies about us in our infancy. Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy; But he beholds the light and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy. The youth who daily farther from the East Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And, by the vision splendid, Is on his way attended. At length the man perceives it die away And fade into the light of common day.
Page 162 - Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?
Page 191 - Sweet flower ! for by that name at last, When all my reveries are past, I call thee, and to that cleave fast, Sweet silent creature ! That breath'st with me in sun and air, Do thou, as thou art wont, repair My heart with gladness, and a share Of thy meek nature ! TO THE SAME FLOWER.
Page 34 - The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms were then to me An appetite ; a feeling and a love That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, or any interest Unborrowed from the eye.
Page 163 - O Proserpina, For the flowers now that frighted thou let'st fall From Dis's waggon! daffodils That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength...
Page 140 - So spake the grisly terror, and in shape, So speaking: and so threatening, grew tenfold More dreadful and deform : on the other side, Incensed with indignation, Satan stood Unterrified, and like a comet burned, That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war.
Page 191 - With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not; Only that film, which fluttered on the grate, Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form, Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit By its own moods interprets, every where Echo or mirror seeking of itself, And makes a toy of Thought.
Page 191 - I see thee glittering from afar ; — And then thou art a pretty Star ; Not quite so fair as many are In heaven above thee ! Yet like a star, with glittering crest, Self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest...
Page 140 - Gently o'er the accustomed oak. Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among I woo, to hear thy even-song; And missing thee, I walk unseen On the dry smooth-shaven green. To behold the wandering moon, Riding near her highest noon. Like one that had been led astray Through the heaven's wide pathless way, And oft, as if her head she bowed, Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

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