ow given up ten years of my life
to the single purpose of enabling myself to judge
rightly of art ... earnestly desiring to ascertain, and
_to be able to teach_, the truth respecting art; also
knowing that this truth was _by time and labour_
definitely ascertainable."--Prof. RUSKIN: _Modern
Painters_, Vol. III.

"Thirdly, that TRUTHS OF COLOUR ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT
OF ALL TRUTHS."--Mr. RUSKIN, Prof, of Art: _Modern
Painters_, Vol. I. Chap. V.

"And that colour is indeed a most unimportant
characteristic of objects, would be further evident on
the slightest consideration. The colour of plants is
constantly changing with the season ... but the nature
and essence of the thing are independent of these
changes. An oak is an oak, whether green with spring, or
red with winter; a dahlia is a dahlia, whether it be
yellow or crimson; and if some monster hunting florist
should ever frighten the flower blue, still it will be a
dahlia; but not so if the same arbitrary changes could
be effected in its form. Let the roughness of the bark
and the angles of the boughs be smoothed or diminished,
and the oak ceases to be an oak; but let it retain its
universal structure and outward form, and though its
leaves grow white, or pink, or blue, or tri-colour, it
would be a white oak, or a pink oak, or a republican
oak, but an oak still."--JOHN RUSKIN, Esq., M.A.,
Teacher and Slade Prof. of Fine Arts: _Modern
Painters_.]

No Artist could obtain fame, except through criticism.[3]

[Note 3: "Canaletto, had he been a great painter,
might have cast his reflections wherever he chose ...
but he is a little and a bad painter."--Mr. RUSKIN, Art
Critic.

"I repeat there is nothing but the work of Prout which
is true, living, or right in its general impression, and
nothing, therefore, so inexhaustively _agreeable_"
(sic).--J. RUSKIN, Art Professor: _Modern Painters_.]

... As to these pictures, they could only come to the conclusion that
they were str