that the respective greatness either of the painter or the writer is to be finally
determined.
^ * &
''S o that, if I say that the greatest picture is that which conveys to the
mind of the spectator the greatest number of the greatest ideas, I have a def
inition which will include as subjects of comparison every pleasure which art
is capable of conveying. If I were to say, on the contrary, that the best picture
was that which most closely imitated nature, I should assume that art could
only please by imitating nature; and I should cast out of the pale2 of criticism
those parts of works of art which are not imitative, that is to say, intrinsic
beauties of color and form, and those works of art wholly, which, like the
Arabesques of Raffaelle in the Loggias,3 are not imitative at all. Now, I want
1. From vol. 1, part 1, section 1, chap. 2. 1520), were decorative wall paintings that featured 2. Beyond the notice or attention. a complex pattern of leaves, animals, and human 3. The arabesques in the Loggia of the Vatican, figures. designed by the Italian painter Raphael (1483?
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MODERN PAINTERS / 1321
a definition of art wide enough to include all its varieties of aim. I do not say, therefore, that the art is greatest which gives most pleasure, because perhaps there is some art whose end is to teach, and not to please. I do not say that the art is greatest which teaches us most, because perhaps there is some art whose end is to please, and not to teach. I do not say that the art is greatest which imitates best, because perhaps there is some art whose end is to create and not to imitate. But I say that the art is greatest which conveys to the mind of the spectator, by any means whatsoever, the greatest number of the greatest ideas; and I call an idea great in proportion as it is received by a higher faculty of the mind, and as it more fully occupies, and in occupying, exercises and exalts, the faculty by which it is received.
If this, then, be the definition of great art, that of a great artist naturally follows. He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.
['the slave ship']4
But I think the noblest sea that Turner has ever painted, and, if so, the noblest certainly ever painted by man, is that of 'The Slave Ship,' the chief Academy5 picture of the exhibition of 1840. It is a sunset on the Atlantic after prolonged storm; but the storm is partially lulled, and the torn and streaming rain clouds are moving in scarlet lines to lose themselves in the hollow of the night. The whole surface of sea included in the picture is divided into two ridges of enormous swell, not high, nor local, but a low, broad heaving of the whole ocean, like the lifting of its bosom by deep-drawn breath after the torture of the storm. Between these two ridges the fire of the sunset falls along the trough of the sea, dyeing it with an awful but glorious light, the intense and lurid splendor which burns like gold and bathes like blood. Along this fiery path and valley the tossing waves by which the swell of the sea is restlessly divided lift themselves in dark, indefinite, fantastic forms, each casting a faint and ghastly shadow behind it along the illumined foam. They do not rise everywhere, but three or four together in wild groups, fitfully and furiously, as the under-strength of the swell compels or permits them; leaving between them treacherous spaces of level and whirling water, now lighted with green and lamplike fire, now flashing back the gold of the declining sun, now fearfully shed from above with the indistinguishable images of the burning clouds, which fall upon them in flakes of crimson and scarlet and give to the reckless waves the added motion of their own fiery being. Purple and blue, the lurid shadows of the hollow breakers are cast upon the mist of night, which gathers cold and low, advancing like the shadow of death upon the guilty ship as it labors amidst the lightning of the sea, its thin masts written upon the sky in lines of blood, girded with condemnation in that fearful hue which signs the sky with horror, and mixes its flaming flood with the sunlight, and, cast far along the desolate heave of the sepulchral waves, incarnadines the multitudinous sea.6
I believe, if I were reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon any single
4. From vol. 1, part 2, section 5, chap. 3. The Ruskin by his father as a New Year's present in painting is of a ship ill which slaves are being trans-1844 and hung in the Ruskin household for a numported. Victims who have died during the passage ber of years until Ruskin decided to sell it because are being thrown overboard at sunset; as Ruskin he found its subject 'too painful to live with.' The noted, 'the near sea is encumbered with corpses.' painting now hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in 5. The Royal Academy of Arts, founded in London Boston. in 1768. The painting, by the great British land-6. Cf. Shakespeare's Macbeth 2.2.60. 'Incarnascapist J. M. W. Turner (1775?1851), was given to dines'; reddens.
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132 2 / JOHN RUSKIN
work, I should choose this. Its daring conception?ideal in the highest sense
of the word?-is based on the purest truth, and wrought out with the concen
trated knowledge of a life; its color is absolutely perfect, not one false or mor
bid hue in any part or line, and so modulated that every square inch of canvas
is a perfect composition; its drawing as accurate as fearless; the ship buoyant,
bending, and full of motion; its tones as true as they are wonderful; and the
whole picture dedicated to the most sublime of subjects and impressions?
completing thus the perfect system of all truth which we have shown to be
formed by Turner's works?the power, majesty, and deathfulness of the open,
