The Crown of Wild Olive

by John Ruskin

  LECTURE IV.

  LIKENESS.

  _November, 1870._

  109. You were probably vexed, and tired, towards the close of my lastlecture, by the time it took us to arrive at the apparently simpleconclusion, that sculpture must only represent organic form, and thestrength of life in its contest with matter. But it is no small thing tohave that "[Greek: leusso Pallada]" fixed in your minds, as the onenecessary sign by which you are to recognize right sculpture, andbelieve me you will find it the best of all things, if you can take foryourselves the saying from the lips of the Athenian maids, in itsentirety, and say also--[Greek: leusso Pallad' eman theon]. I proceedto-day into the practical appliance of this apparently speculative, butin reality imperative, law.

  110. You observe, I have hitherto spoken of the power of Athena, as overpainting no less than sculpture. But her rule over both arts is only sofar as they are zoographic;--representative, that is to say, of animallife, or of such order and discipline among other elements, as mayinvigorate and purify it. Now there is a speciality of the art ofpainting beyond this, namely, the representation of phenomena of colourand shadow, as such, without question of the nature of the things thatreceive them. I am now accordingly obliged to speak of sculpture andpainting as distinct arts, but the laws which bind sculpture, bind noless the painting of the higher schools which has, for its main purpose,the showing beauty in human or animal form; and which is thereforeplaced by the Greeks equally under the rule of Athena, as the Spirit,first, of Life, and then of Wisdom in conduct.

  111. First, I say, you are to "see Pallas" in all such work, as theQueen of Life; and the practical law which follows from this, is one ofenormous range and importance, namely, that nothing must be representedby sculpture, external to any living form, which does not help toenforce or illustrate the conception of life. Both dress and armour maybe made to do this, by great sculptors, and are continually so used bythe greatest. One of the essential distinctions between the Athenian andFlorentine schools is dependent on their treatment of drapery in thisrespect; an Athenian always sets it to exhibit the action of the body,by flowing with it, or over it, or from it, so as to illustrate both itsform and gesture; a Florentine, on the contrary, always uses his draperyto conceal or disguise the forms of the body, and exhibit mentalemotion: but both use it to enhance the life, either of the body orsoul; Donatello and Michael Angelo, no less than the sculptors of Gothicchivalry, ennoble armour in the same way; but base sculptors carvedrapery and armour for the sake of their folds and picturesqueness only,and forget the body beneath. The rule is so stern that all delight inmere incidental beauty, which painting often triumphs in, is whollyforbidden to sculpture;--for instance, in _painting_ the branch of atree, you may rightly represent and enjoy the lichens and moss on it,but a sculptor must not touch one of them: they are inessential to thetree's life,--he must give the flow and bending of the branch only, elsehe does not enough "see Pallas" in it.

  Or to take a higher instance, here is an exquisite little painted poem,by Edward Frere; a cottage interior, one of the thousands which withinthe last two months[123] have been laid desolate in unhappy France.Every accessory in the painting is of value--the fireside, the tiledfloor, the vegetables lying upon it, and the basket hanging from theroof. But not one of these accessories would have been admissible insculpture. You must carve nothing but what has life. "Why"? you probablyfeel instantly inclined to ask me.--You see the principle we have got,instead of being blunt or useless, is such an edged tool that you arestartled the moment I apply it. "Must we refuse every pleasant accessoryand picturesque detail, and petrify nothing but living creatures"?--Evenso: I would not assert it on my own authority. It is the Greeks who sayit, but whatever they say of sculpture, be assured, is true.

  112. That then is the first law--you must see Pallas as the Lady ofLife--the second is, you must see her as the Lady of Wisdom; or [Greek:sophia]--and this is the chief matter of all. I cannot but think, thatafter the considerations into which we have now entered, you will findmore interest than hitherto in comparing the statements of Aristotle, inthe Ethics, with those of Plato in the Polity, which are authoritativeas Greek definitions of goodness in art, and which you may safely holdauthoritative as constant definitions of it. You remember, doubtless,that the [Greek: sophia] or [Greek: arete technes], for the sake ofwhich Phidias is called [Greek: sophos] as a sculptor, and Polyclitus asan image-maker, Eth. 6. 7. (the opposition is both between ideal andportrait sculpture, and between working in stone and bronze) consists inthe "[Greek: nous ton timiotaton te physei]" "the mental apprehension ofthe things that are most honourable in their nature." Therefore what is,indeed, most lovely, the true image-maker will most love; and what ismost hateful, he will most hate, and in all things discern the best andstrongest part of them, and represent that essentially, or, if theopposite of that, then with manifest detestation and horror. That is hisart wisdom; the knowledge of good and evil, and the love of good, sothat you may discern, even in his representation of the vilest thing,his acknowledgment of what redemption is possible for it, or latentpower exists in it; and, contrariwise, his sense of its present misery.But for the most part, he will idolize, and force us also to idolize,whatever is living, and virtuous, and victoriously right; opposing to itin some definite mode the image of the conquered [Greek: herpeton].

  113. This is generally true of both the great arts; but in severity andprecision, true of sculpture. To return to our illustration: this poorlittle girl was more interesting to Edward Frere, he being a painter,because she was poorly dressed, and wore these clumsy shoes, and old redcap, and patched gown. May we sculpture her so? No. We may sculpture hernaked, if we like; but not in rags.

  But if we may not put her into marble in rags, may we give her a prettyfrock with ribands and flounces to it, and put her into marble in that?No. We may put her simplest peasant's dress, so it be perfect andorderly, into marble; anything finer than that would be moredishonourable in the eyes of Athena than rags. If she were a Frenchprincess, you might carve her embroidered robe and diadem; if she wereJoan of Arc you might carve her armour--for then these also would be"[Greek: ton timiotaton]," not otherwise.

  114. Is not this an edge-tool we have got hold of, unawares? and asubtle one too; so delicate and scimitar-like in decision. For note,that even Joan of Arc's armour must be only sculptured, _if she has iton_; it is not the honourableness or beauty of it that are enough, butthe direct bearing of it by her body. You might be deeply, evenpathetically, interested by looking at a good knight's dinted coat ofmail, left in his desolate hall. May you sculpture it where it hangs?No; the helmet for his pillow, if you will--no more.

  You see we did not do our dull work for nothing in last lecture. Idefine what we have gained once more, and then we will enter on our newground.

  115. The proper subject of sculpture, we have determined, is thespiritual power seen in the form of any living thing, and so representedas to give evidence that the sculptor has loved the good of it and hatedthe evil.

  "_So_ represented," we say; but how is that to be done? Why should itnot be represented, if possible, just as it is seen? What mode or limitof representation may we adopt? We are to carve things that havelife;--shall we try so to imitate them that they may indeed seemliving,--or only half living, and like stone instead of flesh?

  It will simplify this question if I show you three examples of what theGreeks actually did: three typical pieces of their sculpture, in orderof perfection.

  116. And now, observe that in all our historical work, I will endeavourto do, myself, what I have asked you to do in your drawing exercises;namely, to outline firmly in the beginning, and then fill in the detailmore minutely. I will give you first, therefore, in a symmetrical form,absolutely simple and easily remembered, the large chronology of theGreek school; within that unforgettable scheme we will place, as wediscover them, the minor relations of arts and times.

  I number the nine centuries before Christ thus, upwards, and divide theminto three group
s of three each.

  { 9 A. ARCHAIC. { 8 { 7 ---- { 6 B. BEST. { 5 { 4 ---- { 3 C. CORRUPT. { 2 { 1

  Then the ninth, eighth, and seventh centuries are the period of ArchaicGreek Art, steadily progressive wherever it existed.

  The sixth, fifth, and fourth are the period of central Greek Art; thefifth, or central century producing the finest. That is easilyrecollected by the battle of Marathon. And the third, second, and firstcenturies are the period of steady decline.

  PLATE VII.--ARCHAIC, CENTRAL AND DECLINING ART OFGREECE.]

  Learn this A B C thoroughly, and mark, for yourselves, what you, atpresent, think the vital events in each century. As you know more, youwill think other events the vital ones; but the best historicalknowledge only approximates to true thought in that matter; only be surethat what is truly vital in the character which governs events, isalways expressed by the art of the century; so that if you couldinterpret that art rightly, the better part of your task in readinghistory would be done to your hand.

  117. It is generally impossible to date with precision art of thearchaic period--often difficult to date even that of the central threehundred years. I will not weary you with futile minor divisions of time;here are three coins (Plate VII.) roughly, but decisively,characteristic of the three ages. The first is an early coin ofTarentum. The city was founded as you know, by the Spartan Phalanthus,late in the eighth century. I believe the head is meant for that ofApollo Archegetes, it may however be Taras, the son of Poseidon; it isno matter to us at present whom it is meant for, but the fact that wecannot know, is itself of the greatest import. We cannot say, with anycertainty, unless by discovery of some collateral evidence, whether thishead is intended for that of a god, or demi-god, or a mortal warrior.Ought not that to disturb some of your thoughts respecting Greekidealism? Farther, if by investigation we discover that the head ismeant for that of Phalanthus, we shall know nothing of the character ofPhalanthus from the face; for there is no portraiture at this earlytime.

  118. The second coin is of AEnus in Macedonia; probably of the fifth orearly fourth century, and entirely characteristic of the central period.This we know to represent the face of a god--Hermes. The third coin is aking's, not a city's. I will not tell you, at this moment, what king's;but only that it is a late coin of the third period, and that it is asdistinct in purpose as the coin of Tarentum is obscure. We know of thiscoin, that it represents no god nor demi-god, but a mere mortal; and weknow precisely, from the portrait, what that mortal's face was like.

  119. A glance at the three coins, as they are set side by side, will nowshow you the main differences in the three great Greek styles. Thearchaic coin is sharp and hard; every line decisive and numbered, setunhesitatingly in its place; nothing is wrong, though everythingincomplete, and, to us who have seen finer art, ugly. The central coinis as decisive and clear in arrangement of masses, but its contours arecompletely rounded and finished. There is no character in its executionso prominent that you can give an epithet to the style. It is not hard,it is not soft, it is not delicate, it is not coarse, it is notgrotesque, it is not beautiful; and I am convinced, unless you had beentold that this is fine central Greek art, you would have seen nothing atall in it to interest you. Do not let yourselves be anywise forced intoadmiring it; there is, indeed, nothing more here, than an approximatelytrue rendering of a healthy youthful face, without the slightest attemptto give an expression of activity, cunning, nobility, or any otherattribute of the Mercurial mind. Extreme simplicity, unpretending vigourof work, which claims no admiration either for minuteness or dexterity,and suggests no idea of effort at all; refusal of extraneous ornament,and perfectly arranged disposition of counted masses in a sequent order,whether in the beads, or the ringlets of hair; this is all you have tobe pleased with; neither will you ever find, in the best Greek Art,more. You might at first suppose that the chain of beads round the capwas an extraneous ornament; but I have little doubt that it is asdefinitely the proper fillet for the head of Hermes, as the olive forZeus, or corn for Triptolemus. The cap or petasus cannot have expandededges, there is no room for them on the coin; these must be understood,therefore; but the nature of the cloud-petasus is explained by edging itwith beads, representing either dew or hail. The shield of Athena oftenbears white pellets for hail, in like manner.

  120. The third coin will, I think, at once strike you by what we modernsshould call its "vigour of character." You may observe also that thefeatures are finished with great care and subtlety, but at the cost ofsimplicity and breadth. But the _essential_ difference between it andthe central art, is its disorder in design--you see the locks of haircannot be counted any longer--they are entirely dishevelled andirregular. Now the individual character may, or may not be, a sign ofdecline; but the licentiousness, the casting loose of the masses in thedesign, is an infallible one. The effort at portraiture is good for artif the men to be portrayed are good men, not otherwise. In the instancebefore you, the head is that of Mithridates VI. of Pontus, who had,indeed, the good qualities of being a linguist and a patron of the arts;but as you will remember, murdered, according to report, his mother,certainly his brother, certainly his wives and sisters, I have notcounted how many of his children, and from a hundred to a hundred andfifty thousand persons besides; these last in a single day's massacre.The effort to represent this kind of person is not by any means a methodof study from life ultimately beneficial to art.

  121. This however is not the point I have to urge to-day. What I wantyou to observe is that, though the master of the great time does notattempt portraiture, he _does_ attempt animation. And as far as hismeans will admit, he succeeds in making the face--you might almostthink--vulgarly animated; as like a real face, literally, "as it canstare." Yes: and its sculptor meant it to be so; and that was whatPhidias meant his Jupiter to be, if he could manage it. Not, indeed, tobe taken for Zeus himself; and yet, to be as like a living Zeus as artcould make it. Perhaps you think he tried to make it look living onlyfor the sake of the mob, and would not have tried to do so forconnoisseurs. Pardon me; for real connoisseurs, he would, and did; andherein consists a truth which belongs to all the arts, and which I willat once drive home in your minds, as firmly as I can.

  122. All second-rate artists--(and remember, the second-rate ones are aloquacious multitude, while the great come only one or two in a century;and then, silently)--all second-rate artists will tell you that theobject of fine art is not resemblance, but some kind of abstraction morerefined than reality. Put that out of your heads at once. The object ofthe great Resemblant Arts is, and always has been, to resemble; and toresemble as closely as possible. It is the function of a good portraitto set the man before you in habit as he lived, and I would we had a fewmore that did so. It is the function of a good landscape to set thescene before you in its reality, to make you, if it may be, think theclouds are flying, and the streams foaming. It is the function of thebest sculptor--the true Daedalus--to make stillness look like breathing,and marble look like flesh.

  123. And in all great times of art, this purpose is as naively expressedas it is steadily held. All the talk about abstraction belongs toperiods of decadence. In living times, people see something living thatpleases them; and they try to make it live for ever, or to make itsomething as like it as possible, that will last for ever. They painttheir statues, and inlay the eyes with jewels, and set real crowns ontheir heads; they finish, in their pictures, every thread of embroidery,and would fain, if they could, draw every leaf upon the trees. And theironly verbal expression of conscious success is, that they have madetheir work "look real."

  124. You think all that very wrong. So did I, once; but it was I thatwas wrong. A long time ago, before ever I had seen Oxford, I painted apicture of the Lake of Como, for my father. It was not at all like theLake
of Como; but I thought it rather the better for that. My fatherdiffered with me; and objected particularly to a boat with a red andyellow awning, which I had put into the most conspicuous corner of mydrawing. I declared this boat to be "necessary to the composition." Myfather not the less objected, that he had never seen such a boat, eitherat Como or elsewhere; and suggested that if I would make the lake look alittle more like water, I should be under no necessity of explaining itsnature by the presence of floating objects. I thought him at the time avery simple person for his pains; but have since learned, and it is thevery gist of all practical matters, which, as professor of fine art, Ihave now to tell you, that the great point in painting a lake is--to getit to look like water.

  125. So far, so good. We lay it down for a first principle, that ourgraphic art, whether painting or sculpture, is to produce somethingwhich shall look as like Nature as possible. But now we must go one stepfarther, and say that it is to produce what shall look like Nature topeople who know what Nature is like! You see this is at once a greatrestriction, as well as a great exaltation of our aim. Our business isnot to deceive the simple; but to deceive the wise! Here, for instance,is a modern Italian print, representing, to the best of its power, St.Cecilia, in a brilliantly realistic manner. And the fault of the work isnot in its earnest endeavour to show St. Cecilia in habit as she lived,but in that the effort could only be successful with persons unaware ofthe habit St. Cecilia lived in. And this condition of appeal only to thewise increases the difficulty of imitative resemblance so greatly, that,with only average skill or materials, we must surrender all hope of it,and be content with an imperfect representation, true as far as itreaches, and such as to excite the imagination of a wise beholder tocomplete it; though falling very far short of what either he or weshould otherwise have desired. For instance, here is a suggestion, bySir Joshua Reynolds, of the general appearance of a BritishJudge--requiring the imagination of a very wise beholder indeed, to fillit up, or even at first to discover what it is meant for. Nevertheless,it is better art than the Italian St. Cecilia, because the artist,however little he may have done to represent his knowledge, does,indeed, know altogether what a Judge is like, and appeals only to thecriticism of those who know also.

  126. There must be, therefore, two degrees of truth to be looked for inthe good graphic arts; one, the commonest, which, by any partial orimperfect sign conveys to you an idea which you must complete foryourself; and the other, the finest, a representation so perfect as toleave you nothing to be farther accomplished by this independentexertion; but to give you the same feeling of possession and presencewhich you would experience from the natural object itself. For instanceof the first, in this representation of a rainbow,[124] the artist hasno hope that, by the black lines of engraving, he can deceive you intoany belief of the rainbow's being there, but he gives indication enoughof what he intends, to enable you to supply the rest of the ideayourself, providing always you know beforehand what a rainbow is like.But in this drawing of the falls of Terni,[125] the painter hasstrained his skill to the utmost to give an actually deceptiveresemblance of the iris, dawning and fading among the foam. So far as hehas not actually deceived you, it is not because he would not have doneso if he could; but only because his colours and science have fallenshort of his desire. They have fallen so little short that, in a goodlight, you may all but believe the foam and the sunshine are driftingand changing among the rocks.

  127. And after looking a little while, you will begin to regret thatthey are not so: you will feel that, lovely as the drawing is, you wouldlike far better to see the real place, and the goats skipping among therocks, and the spray floating above the fall. And this is the true signof the greatest art--to part voluntarily with its greatness;--to make_itself_ poor and unnoticed; but so to exalt and set forth its themethat you may be fain to see the theme instead of it. So that you havenever enough admired a great workman's doing till you have begun todespise it. The best homage that could be paid to the Athena of Phidiaswould be to desire rather to see the living goddess; and the loveliestMadonnas of Christian art fall short of their due power, if they do notmake their beholders sick at heart to see the living Virgin.

  128. We have then, for our requirement of the finest art (sculpture, oranything else), that it shall be so like the thing it represents as toplease those who best know or can conceive the original; and, ifpossible, please them deceptively--its final triumph being to deceiveeven the wise; and (the Greeks thought) to please even the Immortals,who were so wise as to be undeceivable. So that you get the Greek, thusfar entirely true, idea of perfectness in sculpture, expressed to you bywhat Phalaris says, at first sight of the bull of Perilaus, "It onlywanted motion and bellowing to seem alive; and as soon as I saw it, Icried out, it ought to be sent to the god." To Apollo, for only he, theundeceivable, could thoroughly understand such sculpture, and perfectlydelight in it.

  129. And with this expression of the Greek ideal of sculpture, I wishyou to join the early Italian, summed in a single line by Dante--"nonvide me' di me, chi vide 'l vero." Read the 12th canto of the"Purgatory," and learn that whole passage by heart; and if ever youchance to go to Pistoja, look at La Robbia's coloured porcelainbas-reliefs of the seven works of Mercy on the front of the hospitalthere; and note especially the faces of the two sick men--one at thepoint of death, and the other in the first peace and long-drawnbreathing of health after fever--and you will know what Dante meant bythe preceding line, "Morti li morti, e i vivi paren vivi."

  130. But now, may we not ask farther,--is it impossible for art such asthis, prepared for the wise, to please the simple also? Without enteringon the awkward questions of degree, how many the wise can be, or howmuch men should know, in order to be rightly called wise, may we notconceive an art to be possible, which would deceive _every_body, oreverybody worth deceiving? I showed you at my first lecture, a littleringlet of Japan ivory, as a type of elementary bas-relief touched withcolour; and in your rudimentary series you have a drawing by Mr.Burgess, of one of the little fishes enlarged, with every touch of thechisel facsimiled on the more visible scale; and showing the littleblack bead inlaid for the eye, which in the original is hardly to beseen without a lens. You may, perhaps be surprised, when I tell you,that (putting the question of _subject_ aside for the moment, andspeaking only of the mode of execution and aim at resemblance), you havethere a perfect example of the Greek ideal of method in sculpture. Andyou will admit that, to the simplest person whom we could introduce as acritic, that fish would be a satisfactory, nay, almost a deceptive fish;while to any one caring for subtleties of art, I need not point out thatevery touch of the chisel is applied with consummate knowledge, and thatit would be impossible to convey more truth and life with the givenquantity of workmanship.

  FIG. 7.]

  131. Here is, indeed, a drawing by Turner, (Edu. 131), in which withsome fifty times the quantity of labour, and far more highly educatedfaculty of sight, the artist has expressed some qualities of lustre andcolour which only very wise persons indeed could perceive in a JohnDory; and this piece of paper contains, therefore, much more, and moresubtle, art, than the Japan ivory; but are we sure that it is therefore_greater_ art? or that the painter was better employed in producing thisdrawing, which only one person can possess, and only one in a hundredenjoy, than he would have been in producing two or three pieces on alarger scale, which should have been at once accessible to, andenjoyable by, a number of simpler persons? Suppose for instance, thatTurner, instead of faintly touching this outline, on white paper, withhis camel's hair pencil, had struck the main forms of his fish intomarble, thus (Fig. 7): and instead of colouring the white paper sodelicately that, perhaps, only a few of the most keenly observantartists in England can see it at all, had, with his strong hand, tintedthe marble with a few colours, deceptive to the people, and harmoniousto the initiated; suppose that he had even conceded so much to thespirit of popular applause as to allow of a bright glass bead beinginlaid for the eye, in the Japanese manner; and that th
e enlarged,deceptive, and popularly pleasing work had been carved on the outside ofa great building,--say Fishmongers' Hall,--where everybody commerciallyconnected with Billingsgate could have seen it, and ratified it with thewisdom of the market;--might not the art have been greater, worthier,and kinder in such use?

  132. Perhaps the idea does not once approve itself to you of having yourpublic buildings covered with ornaments like this; but pray, rememberthat the choice of _subject_ is an ethical question, not now before us.All I ask you to decide is whether the method is right, and would bepleasant in giving the distinctiveness to pretty things, which it hashere given to what, I suppose it may be assumed, you feel to be an uglything. Of course, I must note parenthetically, such realistic work isimpossible in a country where the buildings are to be discoloured bycoal-smoke; but so is all fine sculpture, whatsoever; and the whiter,the worse its chance. For that which is prepared for private persons, tobe kept under cover, will, of necessity, degenerate into the copyism ofpast work, or merely sensational and sensual forms of present life,unless there be a governing school addressing the populace, for theirinstruction, on the outside of buildings. So that, as I partly warnedyou in my third lecture, you can simply have _no_ sculpture in a coalcountry. Whether you like coals or carvings best, is no business ofmine. I merely have to assure you of the fact that they areincompatible.

  But, assuming that we are again, some day, to become a civilized andgoverning race, deputing ironmongery, coal-digging, and lucre-digging,to our slaves in other countries, it is quite conceivable that, with anincreasing knowledge of natural history, and desire for such knowledge,what is now done by careful, but inefficient, woodcuts, and inill-coloured engravings, might be put in quite permanent sculptures,with inlay of variegated precious stones, on the outside of buildings,where such pictures would be little costly to the people; and in a morepopular manner still, by Robbia ware and Palissy ware, and inlaidmajolica, which would differ from the housewives' present favouritedecoration of plates above her kitchen dresser, by being every piece ofit various, instructive, and universally visible.

  133. You hardly know, I suppose, whether I am speaking in jest orearnest. In the most solemn earnest, I assure you; though such is thestrange course of our popular life that all the irrational arts ofdestruction are at once felt to be earnest; while any plan for those ofinstruction on a grand scale, sounds like a dream or jest. Still, I donot absolutely propose to decorate our public buildings with sculpturewholly of this character; though beast, and fowl, and creeping things,and fishes, might all find room on such a building as the Solomon'sHouse of a New Atlantis; and some of them might even become symbolic ofmuch to us again. Passing through the Strand, only the other day, forinstance, I saw four highly finished and delicately coloured pictures ofcock-fighting, which, for imitative quality, were nearly all that couldbe desired, going far beyond the Greek cock of Himera; and they wouldhave delighted a Greek's soul, if they had meant as much as a Greekcock-fight; but they were only types of the "[Greek: endomachasalektor]," and of the spirit of home contest, which has been so fatallately to the Bird of France; and not of the defence of one's ownbarnyard, in thought of which the Olympians set the cock on the pillarsof their chariot course; and gave it goodly alliance in its battle, asyou may see here, in what is left of the angle of mouldering marble inthe chair of the priest of Dionusos. The cast of it, from the centre ofthe theatre under the Acropolis, is in the British Museum; and I wantedits spiral for you, and this kneeling Angel of Victory;--it is lateGreek art, but nobly systematic flat bas-relief. So I set Mr. Burgess todraw it; but neither he nor I for a little while, could make out whatthe Angel of Victory was kneeling for. His attitude is an ancient andgrandly conventional one among the Egyptians; and I was tracing it backto a kneeling goddess of the greatest dynasty of the Pharaohs--a goddessof Evening, or Death, laying down the sun out of her right hand;--when,one bright day, the shadows came out clear on the Athenian throne, and Isaw that my Angel of Victory was only backing a cock at a cock-fight.

  134. Still, as I have said, there is no reason why sculpture, even forsimplest persons, should confine itself to imagery of fish, or fowl, orfour-footed things.

  We go back to our first principle: we ought to carve nothing but what ishonourable. And you are offended, at this moment, with my fish, (as Ibelieve, when the first sculptures appeared on the windows of thismuseum, offence was taken at the unnecessary introduction of cats),these dissatisfactions being properly felt by your "[Greek: nous tontimiotaton]." For indeed, in all cases, our right judgment must dependon our wish to give honour only to things and creatures that deserve it.

  135. And now I must state to you another principle of veracity, both insculpture, and all following arts, of wider scope than any hithertoexamined. We have seen that sculpture is to be a true representation oftrue external form. Much more is it to be a representation of trueinternal emotion. You must carve only what you yourself see as you seeit; but, much more, you must carve only what you yourself feel, as youfeel it. You may no more endeavour to feel through other men's souls,than to see with other men's eyes. Whereas generally now in Europe andAmerica, every man's energy is bent upon acquiring some false emotion,not his own, but belonging to the past, or to other persons, because hehas been taught that such and such a result of it will be fine. Everyattempted sentiment in relation to art is hypocritical; our notions ofsublimity, of grace, or pious serenity, are all second hand; and we arepractically incapable of designing so much as a bell-handle or adoor-knocker without borrowing the first notion of it from those who aregone--where we shall not wake them with our knocking. I would we could.

  136. In the midst of this desolation we have nothing to count on forreal growth, but what we can find of honest liking and longing, inourselves and in others. We must discover, if we would healthilyadvance, what things are verily [Greek: timiotata] among us; and if wedelight to honour the dishonourable, consider how, in future, we maybetter bestow our likings. Now it appears to me from all our populardeclarations, that we, at present, honour nothing so much as liberty andindependence; and no person so much as the Free man and Self-made man,who will be ruled by no one, and has been taught, or helped, by no one.And the reason I chose a fish for you as the first subject of sculpture,was that in men who are free and self-made, you have the nearestapproach, humanly possible, to the state of the fish, and finelyorganized [Greek: herpeton]. You get the exact phrase in Habakkuk, ifyou take the Septuagint text.--"[Greek: poieseis tous anthropous hostous ichthyas tes thalasses, kai hos ta herpeta ta ouk echontahegoumenon."] "Thou wilt make men as the fishes of the sea, and as thereptile things, _that have no ruler over them_." And it chanced that asI was preparing this lecture, one of our most able and popular printsgave me a woodcut of the "self-made man," specified as such, sovigorously drawn, and with so few touches, that Phidias or Turnerhimself could scarcely have done it better; so that I had only to ask myassistant to enlarge it with accuracy, and it became comparable with myfish at once. Of course it is not given by the caricaturist as anadmirable face; only, I am enabled by his skill to set before you,without any suspicion of unfairness on _my_ part, the expression towhich the life we profess to think most honourable, naturally leads. Ifwe were to take the hat off, you see how nearly the profile correspondswith that of the typical fish.

  PLATE VIII.--THE APOLLO OF SYRACUSE AND THE SELF-MADEMAN.]

  137. Such, then, being the definition by your best popular art, of theideal of feature at which we are gradually arriving by self-manufacture;when I place opposite to it (in Plate VIII.) the profile of a man not inany wise self-made, neither by the law of his own will, nor by the loveof his own interest--nor capable, for a moment, of any kind of"Independence," or of the idea of independence; but wholly dependentupon, and subjected to, external influence of just law, wise teaching,and trusted love and truth, in his fellow-spirits;--setting before you,I say, this profile of a God-made instead of a self-made, man, I knowthat you will feel, on the instant, that you are brought into
contactwith the vital elements of human art; and that this, the sculpture ofthe good, is indeed the only permissible sculpture.

  138. A God-made _man_, I say. The face, indeed, stands as a symbol ofmore than man in its sculptor's mind. For as I gave you, to lead yourfirst effort in the form of leaves, the sceptre of Apollo, so this,which I give you as the first type of rightness in the form of flesh, isthe countenance of the holder of that sceptre, the Sun-God of Syracuse.But there is nothing in the face (nor did the Greek suppose there was)more perfect than might be seen in the daily beauty of the creatures theSun-God shone upon, and whom his strength and honour animated. This isnot an ideal, but a quite literally true, face of a Greek youth; nay, Iwill undertake to show you that it is not supremely beautiful, and evento surpass it altogether with the literal portrait of an Italian one. Itis in verity no more than the form habitually taken by the features of awell educated young Athenian or Sicilian citizen; and the onerequirement for the sculptors of to-day is not, as it has been thought,to invent the same ideal, but merely to see the same reality.

  Now, you know I told you in my fourth lecture, that the beginning of artwas in getting our country clean and our people beautiful, and yousupposed that to be a statement irrelevant to my subject; just as, atthis moment, you perhaps think, I am quitting the great subject of thispresent lecture--the method of likeness-making--and letting myselfbranch into the discussion of what things we are to make likeness of.But you shall see hereafter that the method of imitating a beautifulthing must be different from the method of imitating an ugly one; andthat, with the change in subject from what is dishonourable to what ishonourable, there will be involved a parallel change in the managementof tools, of lines, and of colours. So that before I can determine foryou _how_ you are to imitate, you must tell me what kind of face youwish to imitate. The best draughtsmen in the world could not draw thisApollo in ten scratches, though he can draw the self-made man. Stillless this nobler Apollo of Ionian Greece, (Plate IX.) in which theincisions are softened into a harmony like that of Correggio's painting.So that you see the method itself,--the choice between black incision orfine sculpture, and perhaps, presently, the choice between colour or nocolour, will depend on what you have to represent. Colour may beexpedient for a glistening dolphin or a spotted fawn;--perhapsinexpedient for white Poseidon, and gleaming Dian. So that, beforedefining the laws of sculpture, I am compelled to ask you, _what youmean to carve_; and that, little as you think it, is asking you how youmean to live, and what the laws of your State are to be, for _they_determine those of your statue. You can only have this kind of face tostudy from, in the sort of state that produced it. And you will findthat sort of state described in the beginning of the fourth book of thelaws of Plato; as founded, for one thing, on the conviction that of allthe evils that can happen to a state, quantity of money is the greatest![Greek: meizon kakon, os epos eipein, polei ouden an gignoito, eisgennaion kai dikaion ethon ktesin], "for, to speak shortly, no greaterevil, matching each against each, can possibly happen to a city, asadverse to its forming just or generous character," than its being fullof silver and gold.

  139. Of course, the Greek notion may be wrong, and ours right,only--[Greek: os epos eipein]--you can have Greek sculpture only on thatGreek theory: shortly expressed by the words put into the mouth ofPoverty herself, in the Plutus of Aristophanes "[Greek: Tou ploutouparecho beltionas andras, kai ten gnomen, kai ten idean]," "I deliver toyou better men than the God of Money can, both in imagination andfeature." So on the other hand, this ichthyoid, reptilian, ormono-chondyloid ideal of the self-made man can only be reached,universally, by a nation which holds that poverty, either of purse orspirit,--but especially the spiritual character of being [Greek: ptochoito pneumati], is the lowest of degradations; and which believes that thedesire of wealth is the first of manly and moral sentiments. As I havebeen able to get the popular ideal represented by its own living art, soI can give you this popular faith in its own living words; but in wordsmeant seriously and not at all as caricature, from one of our leadingjournals, professedly aesthetic also in its very name, the _Spectator_,of August 6th, 1870.

  PLATE IX.--APOLLO CHRYSOCOMES OF CLAZOMENAE.]

  "Mr. Ruskin's plan," it says, "would make England poor, in order thatshe might be cultivated, and refined and artistic. A wilder proposal wasnever broached by a man of ability; and it might be regarded as a proofthat the assiduous study of art emasculates the intellect, _and even themoral sense_. Such a theory almost warrants the contempt with which artis often regarded by essentially intellectual natures, like Proudhon"(sic). "Art is noble as the flower of life, and the creations of aTitian are a great heritage of the race; but if England could securehigh art and Venetian glory of colour only by the sacrifice of hermanufacturing supremacy, and _by the acceptance of national poverty_,then the pursuit of such artistic achievements would imply that we hadceased to possess natures of manly strength, _or to know the meaning ofmoral aims_. If we must choose between a Titian and a Lancashire cottonmill, then, in the name of manhood and of morality, give us the cottonmill. Only the dilettantism of the studio; that dilettantism whichloosens the moral no less than the intellectual fibre, and which is asfatal to rectitude of action as to correctness of reasoning power, wouldmake a different choice."

  You see also, by this interesting and most memorable passage, howcompletely the question is admitted to be one of ethics--the only realpoint at issue being, whether this face or that is developed on thetruer moral principle.

  140. I assume, however, for the present, that this Apolline type is thekind of form you wish to reach and to represent. And now observe,instantly, the whole question of manner of imitation is altered for us.The fins of the fish, the plumes of the swan, and the flowing of theSun-God's hair are all represented by incisions--but the incisions dosufficiently represent the fin and feather,--they _in_sufficientlyrepresent the hair. If I chose, with a little more care and labor, Icould absolutely get the surface of the scales and spines of the fish,and the expression of its mouth; but no quantity of labor would obtainthe real surface of a tress of Apollo's hair, and the full expression ofhis mouth. So that we are compelled at once to call the imagination tohelp us, and say to it, _You_ know what the Apollo Chrysocomes must belike; finish all this for yourself. Now, the law under which imaginationworks, is just that of other good workers. "You must give me clearorders; show me what I have to do, and where I am to begin, and let mealone." And the orders can be given, quite clearly, up to a certainpoint, in form; but they cannot be given clearly in color, now that thesubject is subtle. All beauty of this high kind depends on harmony; letbut the slightest discord come into it, and the finer the thing is, themore fatal will be the flaw. Now, on a flat surface, I can command mycolor to be precisely what and where I mean it to be; on a round one Icannot. For all harmony depends, first, on the fixed proportion of thecolor of the light to that of the relative shadow; and therefore if Ifasten my color, I must fasten my shade. But on a round surface theshadow changes at every hour of the day; and therefore all coloringwhich is expressive of form, is impossible; and if the form is fine,(and here there is nothing but what is fine,) you may bid farewell tocolor.

  141. Farewell to color; that is to say, if the thing is to be seendistinctly, and you have only wise people to show it to; but if it is tobe seen indistinctly, at a distance, color may become explanatory; andif you have simple people to show it to, color may be necessary toexcite _their_ imaginations, though not to excite yours. And the art isgreat always by meeting its conditions in the straightest way; and if itis to please a multitude of innocent and bluntly-minded persons, mustexpress itself in the terms that will touch them; else it is not good.And I have to trace for you through the history of the past, andpossibilities of the future, the expedients used by great sculptors toobtain clearness, impressiveness, or splendor; and the manner of theirappeal to the people, under various light and shadow, and with referenceto different degrees of public intelligence: such investigationresolving itself again
and again, as we proceed, into questionsabsolutely ethical; as, for instance, whether color is to be bright ordull,--that is to say, for a populace cheerful or heartless;--whether itis to be delicate or strong,--that is to say, for a populace attentiveor careless; whether it is to be a background like the sky, for aprocession of young men and maidens, because your populace reverelife--or the shadow of the vault behind a corpse stained with drops ofblackened blood, for a populace taught to worship Death. Every criticaldetermination of rightness depends on the obedience to some ethic law,by the most rational and, therefore, simplest means. And you see how itdepends most, of all things, on whether you are working for chosenpersons, or for the mob; for the joy of the boudoir, or of the Borgo.And if for the mob, whether the mob of Olympia, or of St. Antoine.Phidias, showing his Jupiter for the first time, hides behind the templedoor to listen, resolved afterwards "[Greek: rhythmizein to agalma prosto tois pleistois dokoun, ou gar hegeito mikran einai symboulen demoutosoutou]," and truly, as your people is, in judgment, and in multitude,so must your sculpture be, in glory. An elementary principle which hasbeen too long out of mind.

  142. I leave you to consider it, since, for some time, we shall notagain be able to take up the inquiries to which it leads. But,ultimately, I do not doubt that you will rest satisfied in thesefollowing conclusions:

  1. Not only sculpture, but all the other fine arts, must be for thepeople.

  2. They must be didactic to the people, and that as their chief end. Thestructural arts, didactic in their manner; the graphic arts, in theirmatter also.

  3. And chiefly the great representative and imaginative arts--that is tosay, the drama and sculpture--are to teach what is noble in pasthistory, and lovely in existing human and organic life.

  4. And the test of right manner of execution in these arts, is thatthey strike, in the most emphatic manner, the rank of popular mindsto which they are addressed.

  5. And the test of utmost fineness in execution in these arts, is thatthey make themselves be forgotten in what they represent; and so fulfilthe words of their greatest Master,

  "THE BEST, IN THIS KIND, ARE BUT SHADOWS."

  FOOTNOTES:

  [123] See date of delivery of Lecture. The picture was of a peasant girlof eleven or twelve years old, peeling carrots by a cottage fire.

  [124] In Durer's "Melencholia."

  [125] Turner's, in the Hakewill series.