Modern Painters (Complete) by John Ruskin

Author:John Ruskin [Ruskin, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romantic, Aesthetics, General, Social History, Fiction, Fantasy, History, Painting, Classics, Reference
ISBN: 9781465599575
Google: QZ1QAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Published: 2020-09-28T23:13:00.526634+00:00

§ 12. 5. care for human beauty.

Now, the effect of this superb presence of human beauty on men in general was, exactly as it had been in Greek times, first, to turn their thoughts and glances in great part away from all other beauty but that, and to make the grass of the field take to them always more or less the aspect of a carpet to dance upon, a lawn to tilt upon, or a serviceable crop of hay; and, secondly, in what attention they paid to this lower nature, to make them dwell exclusively on what was graceful, symmetrical, and bright in color. All that was rugged, rough, dark, wild, unterminated, they rejected at once, as the domain of "salvage men" and monstrous giants: all that they admired was tender, bright, balanced, enclosed, symmetrical—only symmetrical in the noble and free sense: for what we moderns call "symmetry," or "balance," differs as much from mediæval symmetry as the poise of a grocer's scales, or the balance of an Egyptian mummy with its hands tied to its sides, does from the balance of a knight on his horse, striking with the battle-axe, at the gallop; the mummy's balance looking wonderfully perfect, and yet sure to be one-sided if you weigh the dust of it,—the knight's balance swaying and changing like the wind, and yet as true and accurate as the laws of life.

§ 13. 6. Symmetrical government of design.

And this love of symmetry was still farther enhanced by the peculiar duties required of art at the time; for, in order to fit a flower or leaf for inlaying in armor, or showing clearly in glass, it was absolutely necessary to take away its complexity, and reduce it to the condition of a disciplined and orderly pattern; and this the more, because, for all military purposes, the device, whatever it was, had to be distinctly intelligible at extreme distance. That it should be a good imitation of nature, when seen near, was of no moment; but it was of highest moment that when first the knight's banner flashed in the sun at the turn of the mountain road, or rose, torn and bloody, through the drift of the battle dust, it should still be discernible what the bearing was.

"At length, the freshening western blast

Aside the shroud of battle cast;

And first the ridge of mingled spears

Above the brightening cloud appears;

And in the smoke the pennons flew,

As in the storm the white sea-mew;

Then marked they, dashing broad and far

The broken billows of the war.

Wide raged the battle on the plain;

Spears shook, and falchions flashed amain,

Fell England's arrow-flight like rain;

Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again,

Wild and disorderly.

Amidst the scene of tumult, high,

They saw Lord Marmion's falcon fly,

And stainless Tunstall's banner white,

And Edmund Howard's lion bright."

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