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Transcriber's note:

      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

      Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).

      The text includes a modest amount of Greek, which has
      been transliterated here and enclosed by plus signs
      (e.g., +sophia+). Ruskin abandoned the Greek characters
      in later lectures, transliterating himself. These
      appear as printed (not enclosed by plus signs).

      Footnotes have been located to the end of each numbered
      paragraph.

      Consult the transcriber's note at the end of this text
      for details.





THE EAGLE'S NEST.

Ten Lectures on the Relation of Natural Science to Art,
Given Before the University of Oxford, in Lent Term, 1872

by

JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D.,

Honorary Student of Christ Church, and Honorary Fellow
of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Twelfth Thousand







London
George Allen, 156, Charing Cross Road
1900

[All rights reserved]

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press




PREFACE.


The following Lectures have been written, not with less care, but with
less pains, than any in former courses, because no labour could have
rendered them exhaustive statements of their subjects, and I wished,
therefore, to take from them every appearance of pretending to be so:
but the assertions I have made are entirely deliberate, though their
terms are unstudied; and the one which to the general reader will appear
most startling, that the study of anatomy is destructive to art, is
instantly necessary in explanation of the system adopted for the
direction of my Oxford schools.

At the period when engraving might have become to art what printing
became to literature, the four greatest point-draughtsmen hitherto
known, Mantegna, Sandro Botticelli, Duerer, and Holbein, occupied
themselves in the new industry. All these four men were as high in
intellect and moral sentiment as in art-power; and if they had engraved
as Giotto painted, with popular and unscientific simplicity, would have
left an inexhaustible series of prints, delightful to the most innocent
minds, and strengthening to the most noble.

But two of them, Mantegna and Duerer, were so polluted and paralyzed by
the study of anatomy that the former's best works (the magnificent
mythology of the Vices in the Louvre, for instance) are entirely
revolting to all women and children; while Duerer never could draw one
beautiful female form or face; and, of his important plates, only four,
the Melancholia, St. Jerome in his study, St. Hubert, and The Knight and
Death, are of any use for popular instruction, because in these only,
the figures being fully draped or armed, he was enabled to think and
feel rightly, being delivered from the ghastly toil of bone-delineation.

Botticelli and Holbein studied the face first, and the limbs
secondarily; and the works they have left are therefore (without
exception) precious; yet saddened and corrupted by the influence which
the contemporary masters of body-drawing exercised on them; and at last
eclipsed by their false fame. I purpose, therefore, in my next course of
lectures, to explain the relation of these two draughtsmen to other
masters of design, and of engraving.

BRANTWOOD, _Sept. 2nd, 1872._




CONTENTS.

                       LECTURE I.

                 _February 8, 1872._

                                                       PAGE
  THE FUNCTION IN ART OF THE FACULTY CALLED BY
  THE GREEKS +sophia+                                       1


                       LECTURE II.

                  _February 10, 1872._

  THE FUNCTION IN SCIENCE OF THE FACULTY CALLED BY
  THE GREEKS +sophia+                                      25


                       LECTURE III.

                  _February 15, 1872._

  THE RELATION OF WISE ART TO WISE SCIENCE                 46


                       LECTURE IV.

                  _February 17, 1872._

  THE FUNCTION IN ART AND SCIENCE OF THE VIRTUE
  CALLED BY THE GREEKS +sophrosyne+                        74


                       LECTURE V.

                  _February 22, 1872._

  THE FUNCTION IN ART AND SCIENCE OF THE VIRTUE
  CALLED BY THE GREEKS +autarkeia+                         89


                       LECTURE VI.

                  _February 24, 1872._

  THE RELATION TO ART OF THE SCIENCE OF LIGHT             114


                       LECTURE VII.

                  _February 29, 1872._

  THE RELATION TO ART OF THE SCIENCES OF INORGANIC
  FORM                                                    138


                       LECTURE VIII.

                      _March 2, 1872._

  THE RELATION TO ART OF THE SCIENCES OF ORGANIC
  FORM                                                    161


                        LECTURE IX.

                     _March 7, 1872._

  INTRODUCTION TO ELEMENTARY EXERCISES IN PHYSIOLOGIC
  ART. THE STORY OF THE HALCYON                           188


                        LECTURE X.

                     _March 9, 1872._

  INTRODUCTION TO ELEMENTARY EXERCISES IN HISTORIC
  ART. THE HERALDIC ORDINARIES                            225




                           THE EAGLE'S NEST.




                               LECTURE I.

                     OF WISDOM AND FOLLY IN ART.[A]

                         _8th February, 1872._


1. The Lectures I have given hitherto, though, in the matter of them
conscientiously addressed to my undergraduate pupils, yet were greatly
modified in method by my feeling that this undergraduate class, to which
I wished to speak, was indeed a somewhat imaginary one; and that, in
truth, I was addressing a mixed audience, in greater part composed of
the masters of the University, before whom it was my duty to lay down
the principles on which I hoped to conduct, or prepare the way for the
conduct of, these schools, rather than to enter on the immediate work of
elementary teaching. But to-day, and henceforward most frequently, we
are to be engaged in definite, and, I trust, continuous studies; and
from this time forward, I address myself wholly to my undergraduate
pupils; and wish only that my Lectures may be serviceable to them, and,
as far as the subject may admit of it, interesting.

  [A] The proper titles of these lectures, too long for page-headings,
      are given in the Contents.


2. And, farther still, I must ask even my younger hearers to pardon me
if I treat that subject in a somewhat narrow, and simple way. They have
a great deal of hard work to do in other schools: in these, they must
not think that I underrate their powers, if I endeavour to make
everything as easy to them as possible. No study that is worth pursuing
seriously can be pursued without effort; but we need never make the
effort painful merely for the sake of preserving our dignity. Also, I
shall make my Lectures shorter than heretofore. What I tell you I wish
you to remember; and I do not think it possible for you to remember well
much more than I can easily tell you in half-an-hour. I will promise
that, at all events, you shall always be released so well within the
hour, that you can keep any appointment accurately for the next. You
will not think me indolent in doing this; for, in the first place, I can
assure you, it sometimes takes me a week to think over what it does not
take a minute to say: and, secondly, believe me, the least part of the
work of any sound art-teacher must be his talking. Nay, most deeply
also, it is to be wished that, with respect to the study which I have to
bring before you to-day, in its relation to art, namely, natural
philosophy, the teachers of it, up to this present century, had done
less work in talking, and more in observing: and it would be well even
for the men of this century, pre-eminent and accomplished as they are in
accuracy of observation, if they had completely conquered the old habit
of considering, with respect to any matter, rather what is to be said,
than what is to be known.


3. You will, perhaps, readily admit this with respect to science; and
believe my assertion of it with respect to art. You will feel the
probable mischief, in both these domains of intellect, which must follow
on the desire rather to talk than to know, and rather to talk than to
do. But the third domain, into the midst of which, here, in Oxford,
science and art seem to have thrust themselves hotly, like intrusive
rocks, not without grim disturbance of the anciently fruitful
plain;--your Kingdom or Princedom of Literature? Can we carry our
statement into a third parallelism, for that? It is ill for Science, we
say, when men desire to talk rather than to know; ill for Art, when they
desire to talk rather than to do. Ill for Literature, when they desire
to talk,--is it? and rather than--what else? Perhaps you think that
literature means nothing else than talking?--that the triple powers of
science, art, and scholarship, mean simply the powers of knowing, doing,
and saying. But that is not so in any wise. The faculty of saying or
writing anything well, is an art, just as much as any other; and founded
on a science as definite as any other. Professor Max Mueller teaches you
the science of language; and there are people who will tell you that the
only art I can teach you myself, is the art of it. But try your triple
parallelism once more, briefly, and see if another idea will not occur
to you. In science, you must not talk before you know. In art, you must
not talk before you do. In literature you must not talk before
you--think.

That is your third Province. The Kingdom of Thought, or Conception.

And it is entirely desirable that you should define to yourselves the
three great occupations of men in these following terms:--

  SCIENCE.          The knowledge of things, whether
                    Ideal or Substantial.

  ART.              The modification of Substantial
                    things by our Substantial Power.

  LITERATURE.       The modification of Ideal things
                    by our Ideal Power.


4. But now observe. If this division be a just one, we ought to have a
word for literature, with the 'Letter' left out of it. It is true that,
for the most part, the modification of ideal things by our ideal power
is not complete till it is expressed; nor even to ourselves delightful,
till it is communicated. To letter it and label it--to inscribe and to
word it rightly,--this is a great task, and it is the part of
literature which can be most distinctly taught. But it is only the
formation of its body. And the soul of it can exist without the body;
but not at all the body without the soul; for that is true no less of
literature than of all else in us or of us--"litera occidit, spiritus
autem vivificat."

Nevertheless, I must be content to-day with our old word. We cannot say
'spiriture' nor 'animature,' instead of literature; but you must not be
content with the vulgar interpretation of the word. Remember always that
you come to this University,--or, at least, your fathers came,--not to
learn how to say things, but how to think them.


5. "How to think them! but that is only the art of logic," you perhaps
would answer. No, again, not at all: logic is a method, not a power; and
we have defined literature to be the modification of ideal things by
ideal power, not by mechanical method. And you come to the University to
get that power, or develop it; not to be taught the mere method of using
it.

I say you come to the University for this; and perhaps some of you are
much surprised to hear it! You did not know that you came to the
University for any such purpose. Nay, perhaps you did not know that you
had come to a University at all? You do not at this instant, some of
you, I am well assured, know what a University means. Does it mean, for
instance--can you answer me in a moment, whether it means--a place
where everybody comes to learn something; or a place where somebody
comes to learn everything? It means--or you are trying to make it
mean--practically and at present, the first; but it means theoretically,
and always, the last; a place where only certain persons come, to learn
_everything_; that is to say, where those who wish to be able to think,
come to learn to think: not to think of mathematics only, nor of morals,
nor of surgery, nor chemistry, but of everything, rightly.


6. I say you do not all know this; and yet, whether you know it or
not,--whether you desire it or not,--to some extent the everlasting
fitness of the matter makes the facts conform to it. For we have at
present, observe, schools of three kinds, in operation over the whole of
England. We have--I name it first, though, I am sorry to say, it is last
in influence--the body consisting of the Royal Academy, with the
Institute of Architects, and the schools at Kensington, and their
branches; teaching various styles of fine or mechanical art. We have, in
the second place, the Royal Society, as a central body; and, as its
satellites, separate companies of men devoted to each several science:
investigating, classing, and describing facts with unwearied industry.
And lastly and chiefly, we have the great Universities, with all their
subordinate public schools, distinctively occupied in regulating,--as I
think you will at once admit,--not the language merely, nor even the
language principally, but the modes of philosophical and imaginative
thought in which we desire that youth should be disciplined, and age
informed and majestic. The methods of language, and its range; the
possibilities of its beauty, and the necessities for its precision, are
all dependent upon the range and dignity of the unspoken conceptions
which it is the function of these great schools of literature to awaken,
and to guide.


7. The range and dignity of _conceptions_! Let us pause a minute or two
at these words, and be sure we accept them.

First, what _is_ a conception? What is this separate object of our
work, as scholars, distinguished from artists, and from men of science?

We shall discover this better by taking a simple instance of the three
agencies.

Suppose that you were actually on the plain of Paestum, watching the
drift of storm-cloud which Turner has here engraved.[B] If you had
occupied yourself chiefly in schools of science, you would think of the
mode in which the electricity was collected; of the influence it had on
the shape and motion of the cloud; of the force and duration of its
flashes, and of other such material phenomena. If you were an artist,
you would be considering how it might be possible, with the means at
your disposal, to obtain the brilliancy of the light, or the depth of
the gloom. Finally, if you were a scholar, as distinguished from either
of these, you would be occupied with the imagination of the state of the
temple in former times; and as you watched the thunderclouds drift past
its columns, and the power of the God of the heavens put forth, as it
seemed, in scorn of the departed power of the god who was thought by the
heathen to shake the earth--the utterance of your mind would become,
whether in actual words or not, such as that of the Psalmist:--"Clouds
and darkness are round about Him--righteousness and judgment are the
habitation of His throne." Your thoughts would take that shape, of their
own accord, and if they fell also into the language, still your
essential scholarship would consist, not in your remembering the verse,
still less in your knowing that "judgment" was a Latin word, and
"throne" a Greek one; but in your having power enough of conception, and
elevation enough of character, to understand the nature of justice, and
be appalled before the majesty of dominion.

  [B] Educational Series, No. 8, E.


8. You come, therefore, to this University, I repeat once again, that
you may learn how to form conceptions of proper range or grasp, and
proper dignity, or worthiness. Keeping then the ideas of a separate
school of art, and separate school of science, what have you to learn in
these? You would learn in the school of art, the due range and dignity
of deeds; or doings--(I prefer the word to "makings," as more general),
and in the school of science, you would have to learn the range and
dignity of knowledges.

Now be quite clear about this: be sure whether you really agree with me
or not.

You come to the School of Literature, I say, to learn the range and
dignity of conceptions.

To the School of Art, to learn the range and dignity of deeds.

To the School of Science, to learn the range and dignity of knowledges.

Do you agree to that, or not? I will assume that you admit my triple
division; but do you think, in opposition to me, that a school of
science is still a school of science, whatever sort of knowledge it
teaches; and a school of art still a school of art, whatever sort of
deed it teaches; and a school of literature still a school of
literature, whatever sort of notion it teaches?

Do you think that? for observe, my statement denies that. My statement
is, that a school of literature teaches you to have one sort of
conception, not another sort; a school of art to do a particular sort of
deed, not another sort; a school of science to possess a particular sort
of knowledge, not another sort.


9. I assume that you differ with me on this