Ruskin - Modern painters (vybrané pasáže)
Any material object which can give us pleasure in the simple contemplation of its outward qualities without any direct
and definite exertion of the intellect, I call in some way, beautiful. Why we receive pleasure from some forms and
colors, and not from others, is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar and dislike wormwood.
…
He who has followed up these natural laws of aversion and desire, rendering them more and more authoritative by
constant obedience, so as to derive pleasure always from that which God originally intended should give him pleasure,
and who derives the greatest possible sum of pleasure from any given object, is a man of taste.
§ 2. Definition of the term "taste."
This, then, is the real meaning of this disputed word. Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible
pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection. He who
receives little pleasure from these sources, wants taste; he who receives pleasure from any other sources, has false or
bad taste.
§ 6. Meaning of the term "ideal beauty."
But although everything in nature is more or less beautiful, every species of object has its own kind and degree of
beauty; some being in their own nature more beautiful than others, and few, if any, individuals possessing the utmost
degree of beauty of which the species is capable. This utmost degree of specific beauty, necessarily coexistent with the
utmost perfection of the object in other respects, is the ideal of the object.
Ideas of beauty, then, be it remembered, are the subjects of moral, but not of intellectual perception. By the
investigation of them we shall be led to the knowledge of the ideal subjects of art.
The particularization of flowers by Shakspeare and Shelley affords us the most frequent examples of the exalted use of
these inferior details. It is true that the painter has not the same power of expressing the thoughts with which his
symbols are connected; he is dependent in some degree on the knowledge and feeling of the spectator; but, by the
destruction of such details, his foreground is not rendered more intelligible to the ignorant, although it ceases to have
interest for the informed.
I have just said that every class of rock, earth and cloud, must be known by the painter, with geologic and
meteorologic accuracy. Nor is this merely for the sake of obtaining the character of these minor features themselves,
but more especially for the sake of reaching that simple, earnest, and consistent character which is visible in the whole
effect of every natural landscape. Every geological formation has features entirely peculiar to itself; definite lines of
fracture, giving rise to fixed resultant forms of rock and earth; peculiar vegetable products, among which still farther
distinctions are wrought out by variations of climate and elevation. There is, however, such a thing as composition of
different orders of landscape, though there can be no generalization of them. Nature herself perpetually brings together
elements of various expression. Her barren rocks stoop through wooded promontories to the plain; and the wreaths of
the vine show through their green shadows the wan light of unperishing snow.
I believe that the simple and uncombined landscape, if wrought out with due attention to the ideal beauty of the
features it includes, will always be the most powerful in its appeal to the heart. Contrast increases the splendor of
beauty, but it disturbs its influence; it adds to its attractiveness, but diminishes its power.
All this is equally applicable to the materials of inanimate nature. Impressiveness is destroyed by a multitude of
contradictory facts, and the accumulation, which is not harmonious, is discordant. He who endeavors to unite
simplicity with magnificence, to guide from solitude to festivity, and to contrast melancholy with mirth, must end by
the production of confused inanity. There is a peculiar spirit; possessed by every kind of scene; and although a point of
contrast may sometimes enhance and exhibit this particular feeling more intensely, it must be only a point, not an
equalized opposition. Every introduction of new and different feeling weakens the force of what has already been
impressed, and the mingling of all emotions must conclude in apathy, as the mingling of all colors in white.