JOHN RUSKIN

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10207, 18 February 1919, Page 6

JOHN RUSKIN

A CENTENARY APPRECIATION (By Percival Watson, in the Sydney “Morning Herald.”) It has sometimes been argued that all literature is autobiography. That is probably an exaggerated claim, since it is conceivable that a writer may conceal his real personality behind his literary P ro “ duotions. even though unable to entirely divorce them from a style distinctively his own. But if ever there was a writer of whose work the dictum is truly descriptive, that writer was John Ruskin. it mav truthfully he said that all he wrote is “part of a great confession.” It is this peculiarly- ihtimate and personal element, rather than the distinctive theories which he so eloquently explicated, that gives, abiding interest to fill that he wrote. This is not to imply that his theories, though hotly debated, are necessarily invalid. ,fkat is a mutter to be determined by the facts. But to study Kuskiu is to study the development of a soul, as well as the" development of a principle. Tne principle springs from the character and experience of the man, and so pia-'es b-m among the poets and philosophers. J here are, of course, those who refuse L- admit the existence of a single and' consistent principle informing and guiding the deveviopment of Raskin’s tl.ougnt. "Inconsistency” and “sentimentality have been favonrile epithets with those who have wished to discredit him. Gibers have accused him of confusing mutters which have no natural coherence. To the modern thinker, familiar wiih the precise scientific classification, c-f the schools, such titles as "The Ethics pf the Dust,” and "Tho Political Economy of Art,” suggest a conjunction of terms which belong to entirely disparate categories. What has dust to do with divinity? IVhat have crystals to do with conduct? What fellowship have Jchn Stuart Mill and Sir John Everett Alillais? It is the old cry of “Let the cobbler stick to his last.’’ But, as a matter of fact, it is just this tendency to split up life into broken segments and "specialist” interests that Ruskin set himself specially to challenge. It was Ruskin’s conviction that truth has more to do with great art than has technique. As Alilton contended that a poor soul cannot create a great poem, so Ruskin, especially in his earlier writings, insisted that art cannot be divorced from ethics and remain groat art. Some of his expositors have perhaps overstated his position here. But a passage from his maturer utterances of 1859 makes his attitude clear: "I do not say in the least that in order to be a good painter you. must be a good man: but I do say that in order to be a good, natural painter there must be strong elements of good in the mind, however warped by other parts of tho character." Perhaps this is why even Oscar Wilde admitted it was hard to live np to one’s blue china. The same determined effort "to see life steadily and see it whole” is perceptible in Ruskin’s passionate protest against the conception of an “economic man," whose industrial interests were so separated from the rest of his life by the hypothetical science of the Manchester school of economists -as to lead to a radical disruption of his personality, and a progres-. sive degradation of human life. W hatover we may think of specific aspects of Raskin’s economic pleadings, or his alleged confusion of science and sentiment, wo are not without indications that many of his characteristic theories are receiving increasing endorsement in the thouglit and practice of to-day. The repudiation" of “lassez faife” and the progressive adoption of State regulation in industrial affairs (as illustrated by Factory Acts, Arbitration Courts, oldage pensions, national insurance, housing commissions, and many other features of democratic government) are a tacit recognition of the essential justice of the indictments Ruskin hurled upon the social and industrial conditions of the early nineteenth century. In his attempt to demonstrate that the wealth of a country consists not in material utilities, but rather in the number of full-breathed, healthy, happy human beings it numbers among its citizens, there is hardly one of the foregoing fruits of political- and social idealism that he did not anticipate and advocate. No writer has taught more insistently than he the natural inequalities of human endowment. Apostle of culture that he was, he never failed to recognise the limits placed by Nature upon nurture. And so far as liberty is concerned, it serves but to emphasise by contrast his unwearied emphasis upon the absolute necessity for obedience in either the man or the nation that would attain to dignity, strength, and honour. It is "at tnis point that we are faced most clearly with the prino.p.e which gave continuity to all his many and varied writings. It is here also that vw pft'ceivo tho peculiarly personal basis of his contribution to our literature. Every Ruskiniau is familiar with the story of Ruskin’s childhood, with its marked advantages, and its strange deprivations. Though blessed from the beginning with an unusual degree of comfort, culture, and parental devotion, to nil the ordinary amusements and idiversious of childhood, ho was a stranger. Being denied these, however, he made his own. The observation of trees, birds, and flowers became his chief daily occupation. Long before he heard of formail botany ho could dissect the flowers around him. and was familial with all their parts. Clouds, stones, hills, and river bods revealed to him more interests r.n childhood’s years than they reveal to most men in a lifetime. This self-formed habit of close observation led later to that minute examination of words which made him the supremo stylist ho became. And it also gave the bent to his most charnctertistio thinking. One day he sketched for himself a tree-stem, with ivy loaves upon it. and was led to observe “how much finer it was as a piece of design than nnv cpnventional rearrangement would bo.” This opened his eyes to the gloom and artificnlitv of the conventional' arttheory land practice itlicn prevailing. He saw that tho truth and beauty of nature had been obscured by Puritanic traditions. Following this revelation, and studying tho work of Turner he underwent in 1812 a change which Collingwood describes as almost equivalent to a conversion. He determined to tell the world that “Art, no less than other spheres of life, had its heroes that- tho mainspring of their energy was sincerity. and the burden of their utterance, Truth.” It wits this reverence for sincerity and truth that made him the champion of Turner and the preHaphaelitcs. and so tirelessly did he study and describe the many and minute perfections of Turner as to draw from the artist tho somewhat humorous remonstrance that Ruskin knew more about Iris drawings than he did himself. And, indeed,. this mav have been the faor. If so. it was an addcd'substantiation of Raskin’s .principle that truth and sincerity are fundamental to all groat art, since truth in detail is no less true for being instinctively observed, and almost, unoonstri.ously presented. But reveronoo for truth was a principle;, which, for one of Ruskiu’s quality, could not stop aF nature. ; It must bo applied to man. In one- of his earliest letters he writes;—“l cannot paint nor tread, nor look at minerals, mor do anything else that I like; and the very light of the morning, sun has become hateful to me because of the misery that I know of. and see signs of where 1 know it not. which no imagination can interpret too bitterly. Therefore, I will endtrro it no longer quietly; but henceforward. with any few or many who will help, do my poor best to -abate tboir misery.” All the beauty of the world was tainted for Ruskin, because men

had lost reverence for the truth about man himself. No t till man is beauti* ful in himsolf and ids able to see the beauty in his fello Z's can nature impart tn him her true re welation. The sniokegriined cities of tho world; the dreary tenements of the 'poor; the maimed bodies, tho carc-di itortod features, and the improveriahed lives of the masses, mark the absence of revercnfce, truth obedience, and sin< riv.tv among men. All his study in architecture did but support this convit (tion. Wherever he looked ho perceived I a direct correspondence between the j jreatness or littleness of national charaoti ir. and the greatness or .littleness of architecture. "Ihe Stones of Venice,” a nd tho "Seven Lamp / of Architecture” a re an eloquent and passionate illustrai lori of this theyr/p. The Venetians, dri- ren to their sha/J.ow lagoons by the agg session of the f 7.yun. created tho grandoi ir of St. Mark'v, because, disciplined by ' their peril, anql virtuous by their pass ion for liberty., their building-was the g ntwartlexpres .don of that reverence for right nnd tv.iith, of which their noiile struggles "lull the story. And so it v. ms, by the -Ingle of « developing experien eo, quite 'dear and consistent; that Ru skin passei:’/ from art and architecture to ethics_ ir/d political economy. To folio-, r lym in .'(he explication of his specific views ■of /' work, rein, interest,' education, marri/ige,. and (ho many other princij lies of ' social and industrial reform lie inculcated.-is impos. siblo within; the I units of this article. But enough has r dread y been said to show that whatever''. His. peculiar idiosyncrasies, ho was not altogether beside the mark in his mai n 'contentions. Certainly, no teacher i if ■’(he nineteenth century manifested trv ier/ fidelity to his own principles than I! ay akin did. If the Guild of St. George was a ghastly failure it was not for la' vk of sincerity and sacrifice on Buskin .•’a part. Having put his hand to the plough ho spared not talent, money, nov health that lie might make a straight J furrow. Though noi free from pi-vat * f joibies his persona] defects, such as ’.-he; p may have been, are not worthy to. be temembered. betide his devotion to yyblio j, welfare.