us sorts of plants,
nay, even the most ludicrously applied biblical texts, were all
dragged forward and combined into a wondrous legal summing-up for the
beatification of art; the sense of the impossibility of rationally
referring certain aesthetical phenomena to ethical causes producing in
this lucid and noble thinker a sort of frenzy, a wild impulse to solve
irrational questions by direct appeals for an oracular judgment of God,
to be sought for in the most trumpery coincidences of accidents; so that
the man who has understood most of the subtle reasons of artistic
beauty, who has grasped most completely the psychological causes of
great art and poor art, is often reduced to answer his perplexities
by a sort of aesthetico-moral key and bible divination, or heads-win
tails-lose, toss-up decision. The main pivots of Ruskin's system are,
however, but few: first, the assertion that all legitimate artistic
action is governed by moral considerations, is the direct putting in
practice of the commandments of God; and secondly, that all pleasure in
the beautiful is the act of appreciating the goodness and wisdom of God.
These two main theories completely balance one another; between them,
and with the occasional addition of mystic symbolism, they must explain
the whole question of artistic right and wrong. Now for Ruskin artistic
right and wrong is not only a very complex, but, in many respects,
a very fluctuating question; in order to see how complex and how
fluctuating, we must remember what Ruskin is, and what are his aims.
Ruskin is no ordinary aesthetician, interested in art only inasmuch as
it is a subject for thought, untroubled in the framing of histories,
psychological systems of art philosophy by any personal likings and
dislikings; Ruskin is essentially an artist, he thinks about art because
he feels about art, and his sole object is morally to justify his
artistic sympathies and aversions, morally to justify his caring about
art at all. With him the instinctive likings and dislikings are the
original motor, the system is there only for their sake. He cannot,
therefore, like Lessing, or Hegel, or Taine, quietly shove aside any
phenomenon of artistic preference which does not happen to fit into his
system; he could, like Hegel, assign an inferior rank to painting,
because painting has to fall into the category assigned to romantic,
that is to say, imperfect art; he could not, like Taine, deliberately
stigmatise music