ARTICLE VI.-RUSKIN'S NEW LECTURES ON ART.

Lectures on Art. Delivered before the University of Oxford, in Hilary Term, 1870. By JOHN RUSKIN, M. A., Honorary Student of Christ Church, Slade Professor of Fine Art. New York: John Wiley & Son. 1870. 12mo. pp. 202.

KEENNESS of insight, aided by the pure atmosphere and sweep of view which a generous culture gives, and a rich imagination combined with clearness and grace of verbal expression, give to Ruskin's writings deservedly their high place in the literature of the day. Living British authorship shows no superior in the charms of diction, or in the freshness, vigor, and suggestiveness of thought. A special commendation of his writings to a youthful mind, aspiring to high and true culture, is the practical spirit which animates and characterizes what he says. His conceptions of fine art are in the true spirit of all high culture; and his observations and criticisms are serviceable in every department of æsthetic training. Whether his desire be hint and impulse in the fashioning of manners or of character generally, or in the study of any special art-of discourse, of oratory or of poetry-equally as of painting or architecture,-the reader will not rise from the perusal of his works with the feeling that they contain nothing for him. He can hardly fail to catch a new inspiration of thought and generous culture.

These seven lectures, delivered in January, 1870, on his entering upon the duties of his new professorship in Oxford University, rank, perhaps, higher than any others of his published works in the richness and value of their teachings serviceable to true culture. The first lecture is Inaugural; the three following are general, treating severally of the Relations of Art to Religion, to Morality, and to Use; and the three closing lectures are specially designed to lead his classes

in their training in art by instructions in Line, Light, and Color.

In his Inaugural, he takes occasion to hail the new era in education, introduced by the founding of a professorship in Fine Art in each of the three great universities of England. In this step, he thinks, is signaled a vital change in the national mind respecting the principles on which education should be conducted, and the ranks of society to which it should extend. Instead of the discipline by the study of abstract branches of literature and philosophy, is now substituted a discipline by means of the study of what is to be of chief practical advantage in after life. And, besides, an option of studies to suit personal dispositions is now allowed instead of the fixed uniform course heretofore prescribed in common for all. He is careful however to emphasize the opinion that the object of university instruction should be not, primarily, attainment, but discipline;-not apprenticeship to a trade or advancement to a profession, but to make "gentlemen and scholars."

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We are sorry to see cropping out here a narrow insularity of sentiment, a little characteristic of British manners, as he commends to gentle England to aim at an ideal of national life which shall admit none of the ignoble occupations, but shall depute to less fortunate and more covetous (?) races" all mechanical operations that are debasing in their tendency. It would seem that he restricts to Englishmen his application of "the law of noble life," in another place, given by him as summed up in two of Pope's lines which, he says, “are the most complete, the most concise, and the most lofty expression of moral temper existing in English words:"

"Never elated, when one man's oppressed,

Never dejected, while another's blessed."

This insular narrowness and partiality of view appears elsewhere in his antipathy to all mechanical forces, to all mechanical processes which save human labor and compete with manual skill. In the same spirit he condemns the use of iron in

architecture, and would have building exclusively of wood and stone.

narrowness.

Thoroughly British in this respect, indeed, is Ruskin's mind. The leading blemish in his writings is this one-sidedness and His vision is clear and accurate; it is too generally narrow in range. His generalizations of principle and rule are hence unsound and dangerous. The Christian view of all dutiful occupation so well and truly given in George Herbert's familiar lyric, which glorifies even servile labors, which hallows all toil and makes the meanest work divine, is too broad for Ruskin; and the Christian doctrine of universal human brotherhood which ranges beyond narrow seas and makes the world its field of view and of effort, far out-reaches his mental grasp. But this very narrowness and particularity may help sometimes to a keener, minuter discernment, and bring into view what a broader range would confuse or dim. Even the unsound generalizations pushed in directions not generally observed to be open, are often suggestive.

This, in fact, we believe to be a characteristic feature of these lectures. The observations, the recognitions of fact, are the gifts of a vision eminently keen and accurate. His high attainments in art-skill and art-study, have lifted Ruskin to an eminence from which his patient, truth-loving gaze has been enabled to perceive what has transcended the world's eye hitherto. And his warm, sympathetic nature which prompts him to communicate to others what he himself has gathered of value, has put him on applications and extensions of his particular observations in ways and to fields of thought and practice which are rich and precious as they are new and admirable.

We propose to gather up these newer observations in art, and these applications and generalizations of them which appear to be of value, that we may help turn them to the best account for the benefit of scienee and of art, as also of general culture. We shall best accomplish our object as we distribute our gatherings into the three separate fields of 1. The proper nature and function of Art; 2. The Relations of Art; and 3. The Method in Art.

We should, however, precede this interpretation of the lectures before us with the indication of the special occasion and design which have prompted and shaped them. As already stated, they are the first lectures given from the new chair of Fine Art in the University of Oxford. The function of this new Professorship is stated to be "to establish both a practical and critical school of fine art for English gentlemen; practical, so that if they draw at all they may draw rightly; and critical, so that they may both be directed to such works of existing art as will best reward their study; and enabled to make the exercise of their patronage of living artists delightful to themselves by their consciousness of its justice, and to the utmost beneficial to their country, by being given only to the men who deserve it." But the peculiar condition and character of Englishmen impose limits on the field of art-instruction, in two specified particulars:-first, Englishmen can "never excel in decorative design," because "they have too much to think of, and they think of it too anxiously;" secondly, Englishmen can "never be successful in the highest fields of ideal or theological art," because of their characteristic "delight in the forms of burlesque which are connected in some degree with the foulness in evil." But Englishmen may hope to succeed in portraiture, which is ranked as the highest department of art, as "whatever is best in the great compositions depended on portraiture ;" and also in representation of domestic life, of animal life, and of landscape. For accomplishing his aim Professor Ruskin proposes to arrange an educational series of examples of excellent art from which shall be severally excluded all second-rate, superfluous, and "even attractively varied examples," the greater number of which shall not be costly, many of them only engravings or photographs, and to induce the attendants upon his lectures "to give at least so much time to manual practice as may enable them to understand the nature and difficulty of executive skill."

I. The proper nature and function of Art.

We must not expect from Professor Ruskin the exactest precision in his definitions. A thorough logical training unhap

pily is a sad defect as much in British schools as elsewhere; and conclusions and generalizations must therefore be taken with some caution. Here indeed the greatest criticism on Ruskin's writings fastens itself. Principles are laid down as universal and necessary, which, thoroughly examined, are but partial. Every where this defect appears, as we shall sufficiently exemplify.

Art is formally defined to be "human labor regulated by human design." But this definition includes all rational endeavor, even the lowest industrial pursuit and most menial work. Fine art, which it is the special aim of the new professorship to cultivate and teach, seems to be restricted to "the production of beautiful things;" while yet, in a vague way, that art is recognized as "properly fine,' which demands the full faculties of heart and intellect."

The fine arts, further, it is claimed, are "not necessarily imitative or representative, for their essence is being 'Epi révɛow-occupied in the actual production of beautiful form or color." This recognition of the creative function of true art shows Ruskin's wide departure from the current teachings, and merits emphatic mention. The conception of art as only imitative, which seems to have originated in an erroneous interpretation of a rather loose remark of Aristotle in regard to poetry, we conceive, utterly mistakes the true nature of art, and degrades and hampers it. The error has been well-nigh universally prevalent, and even Ruskin himself is misled by it, as where he makes "likeness" an essential thing in the graphic arts' so called, and coördinate with skill and beauty. The truth is, that just so far as art is merely imitative, just so far as it merely repeats from a copy, it is as purely mechanical as photography, and is as wanting in that free creative power which enters into the very essence of true art.

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Still further, Ruskin conceives of art as essentially expressive. And for this view of art, which pervades all his conceptions of it, we desire to render him our most grateful acknowl. edgments. No service he has rendered to art and culture, great and various as we deem it to be, can be compared with this of indicating and vindicating this feature as entering into the very essence of art. And we commend the following