Art; a Ruskin Anthology |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Angelico arch architects architecture artist Athena beautiful believe blue bright building carve cathedral century character chiaroscuro clouds color Correggio Crystal Palace dark decoration delicate delight drawing England English engraving entirely expression exquisite eyes feel Fésole finished Giorgione Giottesque Giotto gold golden Gothic GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE graceful Greek Griffith hand heart Herne Hill human imagination John Ruskin landscape art Leonardo less light lines living Lombard look lovely marble masters merely Michael Angelo mind Modern Painters mountain nations nature ness never noble once ornament painting Palace passion Paths Pentelici perfect Phidias picture piece pillars porphyry Pre-Raphaelitism precious pure purple Raphael religious Rembrandt rightly Ruskin sculpture seen sense shadow Splügen Splügen Pass Stones of Venice strength strong style sunshine tenderness thing thought Tintoret tion Titian touch true truth Turner Venetian Veronese walls whole word
Popular passages
Page 47 - The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, And flamed upon the brazen greaves Of bold Sir Lancelot. A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd To a lady in his shield, That sparkled on the yellow field, Beside remote Shalott.
Page 96 - The Venice of modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of decay, a stage dream which the first ray of daylight must dissipate into dust. No prisoner, whose name is worth remembering, or whose sorrow deserved sympathy, ever crossed that
Page 21 - GREAT nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts — the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others ; but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the last.
Page 63 - I do not mean, by humility, doubt of his own power, or hesitation in speaking his opinions ; but a right understanding of the relation between what he can do and say, and the rest of the world's sayings and doings. All great men not only know their business, but usually know that they know it; and are not only right in their main opinions, but they usually know that they are right in them ; only, they do not think much of themselves on that account Arnolfo knows he can build a good dome at Florence...
Page 175 - Under foot and over head, a continual succession of crowded imagery, one picture passing into another, as in a dream; forms beautiful and terrible mixed together; dragons and serpents, and ravening beasts of prey, and graceful birds that in the midst of them drink from running fountains and feed from vases of crystal: the passions and the pleasures of human life...
Page 96 - Beneath, the unsullied sea drew in deep breathing, to and fro, its eddies of green wave. Deep-hearted, majestic, terrible as the sea, - the men of Venice moved in sway of power and war; pure as her pillars of alabaster, stood her mothers and maidens; from foot to brow, all noble, walked her knights; the low bronzed gleaming of sea-rusted armour shot angrily under their blood-red mantlefolds.
Page 148 - ... and in which all chief magnitude of edifice is to enclose machinery ; cities in which the streets are not the avenues for the passing and procession of a happy people, but the drains for the discharge of a tormented mob, in which the only object in reaching any spot is to be transferred to another ; in which existence becomes mere transition, and every creature is only one atom in a drift of human dust, and current of interchanging particles, circulating here by tunnels...
Page 126 - Vulgarity, dulness, or impiety, will indeed always express themselves through art in brown and grey, as in Rembrandt, Caravaggio, and Salvator; but we are not wholly vulgar, dull, or impious ; nor, as moderns, are we necessarily obliged to continue so in anywise. Our greatest men, whether sad or gay, still delight, like the great men of all ages, in brilliant hues.
Page 120 - I think, the noblest sea that Turner has ever painted, and, if so, the noblest certainly ever painted by man, is that of the Slave Ship, the chief Academy picture of the Exhibition of 1840.
Page 134 - Book of Job," engraved by himself, is of the highest rank in certain characters of imagination and expression ; in the mode of obtaining certain effects of light it will also be a very useful example to you. In expressing conditions of glaring and flickering light, Blake is greater than Rembrandt.