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                        Transcriber's Notes:


  The original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and
  formatting have been retained. Unusual and alternative spellings have
  been retained as they appear on the original publication. Hyphenated
  words have been standardized.

  Contractions in the stylized Latin script on page 125 have been
  expanded and included in curly brackets {} by the transcriber:
  "jahes" has been shown as "jah{ann}es" and "scpsi" as "sc{ri}psi".

  Minor typographical changes are listed at the bottom of this text.

       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *




                          Library Edition

                         THE COMPLETE WORKS
                                 OF
                             JOHN RUSKIN


                           MODERN PAINTERS

             VOLUME II--OF TRUTH AND THEORETIC FACULTIES
                      VOLUME III--OF MANY THINGS


                    NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
                    NEW YORK             CHICAGO




                           MODERN PAINTERS.

                              VOL. III.,

                              CONTAINING

                               PART IV.,

                           OF MANY THINGS.




                          TABLE OF CONTENTS.

                       PART IV. OF MANY THINGS.

                                                                    PAGE
  CHAPTER  I.--Of the received Opinions touching the "Grand Style"     1
     "    II.--Of Realization                                         16
     "   III.--Of the Real Nature of Greatness of Style               23
     "    IV.--Of the False Ideal:--First, Religious                  44
     "     V.--Of the False Ideal:--Secondly, Profane                 61
     "    VI.--Of the True Ideal:--First, Purist                      70
     "   VII.--Of the True Ideal:--Secondly, Naturalist               77
     "  VIII.--Of the True Ideal:--Thirdly, Grotesque                 92
     "    IX.--Of Finish                                             108
     "     X.--Of the Use of Pictures                                124
     "    XI.--Of the Novelty of Landscape                           144
     "   XII.--Of the Pathetic Fallacy                               152
     "  XIII.--Of Classical Landscape                                168
     "   XIV.--Of Mediaeval Landscape:--First, the Fields             191
     "    XV.--Of Mediaeval Landscape:--Secondly, the Rocks           229
     "   XVI.--Of Modern Landscape                                   248
     "  XVII.--The Moral of Landscape                                280
     " XVIII.--Of the Teachers of Turner                             308


                              APPENDIX.


    I.--Claude's Tree-drawing                                        333
   II.--German Philosophy                                            336
  III.--Plagiarism                                                   338




                     LIST OF PLATES TO VOL. III.


                                  Drawn by            Engraved by
  Frontispiece. Lake, Land,     _The Author_        J. C. ARMYTAGE.
    and Cloud.
                                                                  Facing
   Plate                                                            page

   1. True and False Griffins    _The Author_       R. P. CUFF       106

   2. Drawing of Tree-bark       _Various_          J. H. LE KEUX    114

   3. Strength of old Pine       _The Author_       J. H. LE KEUX    116

   4. Ramification according     _Claude_           J. H. LE KEUX    117
      to Claude

   5. Good and Bad               _Turner and        J. COUSEN        118
      Tree-drawing               Constable_

   6. Foreground Leafage         _The Author_       J. C. ARMYTAGE   121

   7. Botany of the Thirteenth   _Missal-Painters_  HENRY SHAW       203
      Century

   8. The Growth of Leaves       _The Author_       R. P. CUFF       204

   9. Botany of the Fourteenth   _Missal-Painters_  CUFF; H. SWAN    207
      Century

  10. Geology of the Middle      _Leonardo, etc._   R. P. CUFF       238
      Ages

  11. Latest Purism              _Raphael_          J. C. ARMYTAGE   313

  12. The Shores of Wharfe       _J. W. M. Turner_  THE AUTHOR       314

  13. First Mountain-Naturalism  _Masaccio_         J. H. LE KEUX    315

  14. The Lombard Apennine       _The Author_       THOS. LUPTON     315

  15. St. George of the Seaweed  _The Author_       THOS. LUPTON     315

  16. Early Naturalism           _Titian_           J. C. ARMYTAGE   316

  17. Advanced Naturalism        _Tintoret_         J. C. ARMYTAGE   316




PREFACE.


As this preface is nearly all about myself, no one need take the trouble
of reading it, unless he happens to be desirous of knowing-- what I, at
least, am bound to state,--the circumstances which have caused the long
delay of the work, as well as the alterations which will be noticed in
its form.

The first and second volumes were written to check, as far as I
could, the attacks upon Turner which prevented the public from
honoring his genius, at the time when his power was greatest. The
check was partially given, but too late; Turner was seized by
painful illness not long after the second volume appeared; his
works, towards the close of the year 1845, showed a conclusive
failure of power; and I saw that nothing remained for me to write,
but his epitaph.

The critics had done their proper and appointed work; they had
embittered, more than those who did not know Turner intimately could
have believed possible, the closing years of his life; and had
blinded the world in general (as it appears ordained by Fate that
the world always _shall_ be blinded) to the presence of a great
spirit among them, till the hour of its departure. With them, and
their successful work, I had nothing more to do; the account of gain
and loss, of gifts and gratitude, between Turner and his countrymen,
was for ever closed. _He_ could only be left to his quiet death at
Chelsea,--the sun upon his face; _they_ to dispose a length of
funeral through Ludgate, and bury, with threefold honor, his body in
St. Paul's, his pictures at Charing Cross, and his purposes in
Chancery. But with respect to the illustration and preservation of
those of his works which remained unburied, I felt that much might
yet be done, if I could at all succeed in proving that these works
had some nobleness in them, and were worth preservation. I pursued
my task, therefore, as I had at first proposed, with this only
difference in method,--that instead of writing in continued haste,
such as I had been forced into at first by the urgency of the
occasion, I set myself to do the work as well as I could, and to
collect materials for the complete examination of the canons of art
received among us.

I have now given ten years of my life to the single purpose of
enabling myself to judge rightly of art, and spent them in labor as
earnest and continuous as men usually undertake to gain position, or
accumulate fortune. It is true, that the public still call me an
"amateur;" nor have I ever been able to persuade them that it was
possible to work steadily and hard with any other motive than that
of gaining bread, or to give up a fixed number of hours every day to
the furtherance of an object unconnected with personal interests. I
have, however, given up so much of life to this object; earnestly
desiring to ascertain, and be able to teach, the truth respecting
art; and also knowing that this truth was, by time and labor,
definitely ascertainable.

It is an idea too frequently entertained, by persons who are not much
interested in art, that there are no laws of right or wrong concerning
it; and that the best art is that which pleases most widely. Hence the
constant allegation of "dogmatism" against any one who states
unhesitatingly either preference or principle, respecting pictures.
There are, however, laws of truth and right in painting, just as fixed
as those of harmony in music, or of affinity in chemistry. Those laws
are perfectly ascertainable by labor, and ascertainable no other way.
It is as ridiculous for any one to speak positively about painting who
has not given a great part of his life to its study, as it would be for
a person who had never studied chemistry to give a lecture on
affinities of elements; but it is also as ridiculous for a person to
speak hesitatingly about laws of painting who has conscientiously given
his time to their ascertainment, as it would be for Mr. Faraday to
announce in a dubious manner that iron had an affinity for oxygen, and
to put the question to the vote of his audience whether it had or not.
Of course there are many things, in all stages of knowledge, which
cannot be dogmatically stated; and it will be found, by any candid
reader, either of what I have before written, or of this book, that in
many cases, I am _not_ dogmatic. The phrase, "I think so," or, "it
seems so to me," will be met with continually; and I pray the reader to
believe that I use such expression always in seriousness, never as
matter of form.

It may perhaps be thought that, considering the not very elaborate
structure of the following volumes, they might have been finished
sooner. But it will be found, on reflection, that the ranges of
inquiry engaged in demanded, even for their slight investigation,
time and pains which are quite unrepresented in the result. It often
required a week or two's hard walking to determine some geological
problem, now dismissed in an unnoticed sentence; and it constantly
needed examination and thought, prolonged during many days in the
picture gallery, to form opinions which the reader may suppose to be
dictated by caprice, and will hear only to dispute.

A more serious disadvantage, resulting from the necessary breadth of
subject, was the chance of making mistakes in minor and accessory
points. For the labor of a critic who sincerely desires to be just,
extends into more fields than it is possible for any single hand to
furrow straightly. He has to take _some_ note of many physical
sciences; of optics, geometry, geology, botany, and anatomy; he must
acquaint himself with the works of all great artists, and with the
temper and history of the times in which they lived; he must be a fair
metaphysician, and a careful observer of the phenomena of natural
scenery. It is not possible to extend the range of work thus widely,
without running the chance of occasionally making mistakes; and if I
carefully guarded against that chance, I should be compelled both to
shorten my powers of usefulness in many directions, and to lose much
time over what work I undertook. All that I can secure, therefore, is
rightness in main points and main tendencies; for it is perfectly
possible to protect oneself against small errors, and yet to make
great and final error in the sum of work: on the other hand, it is
equally possible to fall into many small errors, and yet be right in
tendency all the while, and entirely right in the end. In this
respect, some men may be compared to careful travellers, who neither
stumble at stones, nor slip in sloughs, but have, from the beginning
of their journey to its close, chosen the wrong road; and others to
those who, however slipping or stumbling at the wayside, have yet
their eyes fixed on the true gate and goal (stumbling, perhaps, even
the more because they have), and will not fail of reaching them. Such
are assuredly the safer guides: he who follows them may avoid their
slips, and be their companion in attainment.

Although, therefore, it is not possible but that, in the discussion
of so many subjects as are necessarily introduced in the following
pages, here and there a chance should arise of minor mistake or
misconception, the reader need not be disturbed by the detection of
any