does not lead to a noble end. For observe, I have only dwelt upon the rudeness
of Gothic, or any other kind of imperfectness, as admirable, where it was
impossible to get design or thought without it. If you are to have the thought
of a rough and untaught man, you must have it in a rough and untaught way;
but from an educated man, who can without effort express his thoughts in an
educated way, take the graceful expression, and be thankful. Only get the
thought, and do not silence the peasant because he cannot speak good gram
mar, or until you have taught him his grammar. Grammar and refinement are
good things, both, only be sure of the better thing first. And thus in art, delicate
finish is desirable from the greatest masters, and is always given by them. In
some places Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Phidias, Perugino, Turner7 all fin
ished with the most exquisite care; and the finish they give always leads to the
fuller accomplishment of their noble purposes. But lower men than these
cannot finish, for it requires consummate knowledge to finish consummately,
and then we must take their thoughts as they are able to give them. So the
rule is simple: Always look for invention first, and after that, for such execution
as will help the invention, and as the inventor is capable of without painful
effort, and no more. Above all, demand no refinement of execution where there
is no thought, for that is slaves' work, unredeemed. Rather choose rough work
than smooth work, so only that the practical purpose be answered, and never
6. Although the Atlantic slave trade had been out-da Vinci (1452?1519), Italian painter, sculptor, lawed early in the 18th century, transatlantic traf-and scientist; Phidias (born ca. 490 B.C.E.), an Athficking in African slaves continued until slavery enian often called the greatest Greek sculptor; was made illegal everywhere in the Americas. Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci, ca. 7. All notable artists: Michelangelo (1475-1564), 1450-1523); and J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851), Italian sculptor, painter, and architect; Leonardo British painter.
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133 2 / JOHN RUSKIN
imagine there is reason to be proud of anything that may be accomplished by
patience and sandpaper.
I shall only give one example, which however will show the reader what I
mean, from the manufacture already alluded to, that of glass. Our modern
glass is exquisitely clear in its substance, true in its form, accurate in its cut
ting. We are proud of this. We ought to be ashamed of it. The old Venice glass
was muddy, inaccurate in all its forms, and clumsily cut, if at all. And the old
Venetian was justly proud of it. For there is this difference between the English
and Venetian workman, that the former thinks only of accurately matching
his patterns, and getting his curves perfectly true and his edges perfectly sharp,
and becomes a mere machine for rounding curves and sharpening edges, while
the old Venetian cared not a whit whether his edges were sharp or not, but
he invented a new design for every glass that he made, and never molded a
handle or a lip without a new fancy in it. And therefore, though some Venetian glass is ugly and clumsy enough, when made by clumsy and uninventive workmen, other Venetian glass is so lovely in its forms that no price is too great for it; and we never see the same form in it twice. Now you cannot have the finish and the varied form too. If the workman is thinking about his edges, he cannot be thinking of his design; if of his design, he cannot think of his edges. Choose whether you will pay for the lovely form or the perfect finish, and choose at the same moment whether you will make the worker a man or a grindstone. Nay, but the reader interrupts me?'If the workman can design beautifully,
I would not have him kept at the furnace. Let him be taken away and made a
gentleman, and have a studio, and design his glass there, and I will have it
blown and cut for him by common workmen, and so I will have my design and my finish too.'
All ideas of this kind are founded upon two mistaken suppositions: the first, that one man's thoughts can be, or ought to be, executed by another man's hands; the second, that manual labor is a degradation, when it is governed by
intellect.
On a large scale, and in work determinable by line and rule, it is indeed
both possible and necessary that the thoughts of one man should be carried
