Comments on: Ruskin on Venice http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1524 News for Art Historians Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:57:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Ben http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1524&cpage=1#comment-138248 Ben Fri, 07 May 2010 15:22:24 +0000 http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1524#comment-138248 One reviewer mentioned Carlyle in comparison. As a non-19th-c-specialist, I'm taken aback by the impassioned, florid tone that is characteristic of both. I think it's fair to say that most 20th-c. critics and historians don't write this way. But I'm curious about why that is. Academic professionalization? An effort to emulate the exact sciences (neutrality, objectivity, etc.)? A need to be seen to be thoroughly demystified and self-critical, post Freud Marx Nietzsche? I would actually be interested to read a review of Olafur Eliasson or the Burj Dubai that adopted a tone similar to the quotations below. * * * Ruskin: Deep-hearted, majestic, terrible as the sea, – the men of Venice moved in sway of power and war; pure as her pillars of alabaster, stood her mothers and maidens; from foot to brow, all noble, walked her knights; the low bronzed gleaming of sea-rusted armour shot angrily under their blood-red mantle-folds. http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/the-nautilus/ Carlyle: Dance on, ye foolish ones ; ye sought not wisdom, neither have ye found it. Ye and your fathers have sown the wind, ye shall reap the whirlwind. Was it not, from of old, written : /The wages of sin is death/ ? http://books.google.com/books?id=7YgHAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA49 One reviewer mentioned Carlyle in comparison. As a non-19th-c-specialist, I’m taken aback by the impassioned, florid tone that is characteristic of both. I think it’s fair to say that most 20th-c. critics and historians don’t write this way. But I’m curious about why that is. Academic professionalization? An effort to emulate the exact sciences (neutrality, objectivity, etc.)? A need to be seen to be thoroughly demystified and self-critical, post Freud Marx Nietzsche?

I would actually be interested to read a review of Olafur Eliasson or the Burj Dubai that adopted a tone similar to the quotations below.

* * *

Ruskin:

Deep-hearted, majestic, terrible as the sea, – the men of Venice moved in sway of power and war; pure as her pillars of alabaster, stood her mothers and maidens; from foot to brow, all noble, walked her knights; the low bronzed gleaming of sea-rusted armour shot angrily under their blood-red mantle-folds.

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/the-nautilus/

Carlyle:

Dance on, ye foolish ones ; ye sought not wisdom, neither have ye found it. Ye and your fathers have sown the wind, ye shall reap the whirlwind. Was it not, from of old, written : /The wages of sin is death/ ?

http://books.google.com/books?id=7YgHAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA49

]]> By: david packwood http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1524&cpage=1#comment-138245 david packwood Fri, 07 May 2010 11:48:04 +0000 http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1524#comment-138245 I have a problem with Ruskin's morality, especially when it gets out of hand and leads to daft pronouncements on Rosa, Guido Reni et al. His importance to Venice was brought home to me by a chat with the guide of San Giobbe- a church that Ruskin admired for its architectural restraint- last month. The guide told me that Ruskin was very important to the Venetians because he wrote of a Venice that is no longer there. I have a problem with Ruskin’s morality, especially when it gets out of hand and leads to daft pronouncements on Rosa, Guido Reni et al.

His importance to Venice was brought home to me by a chat with the guide of San Giobbe- a church that Ruskin admired for its architectural restraint- last month. The guide told me that Ruskin was very important to the Venetians because he wrote of a Venice that is no longer there.

]]> By: Jon Lackman http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1524&cpage=1#comment-138235 Jon Lackman Thu, 06 May 2010 14:25:33 +0000 http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1524#comment-138235 I find Ruskin stimulating on most any topic. I particularly recommend Modern Painters, which has great insights into art, even though he often seems much more interested such things in geology and cloud formation. His moral sense was indeed formidable, not just when it came to Whistler but also Canaletto ("The mannerism of Canaletto is the most degraded that I know in the whole range of art") and indeed the whole of landscape painting: "And let it be understood that whenever hereafter I speak depreciatingly of the old masters as a body ... I refer only to Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, Hobbema, Teniers (in his landscapes), P. Potter, Canaletto, and the various Van somethings and Back somethings, more especially and malignantly those who have libelled the sea.... No doubt can, I think, be reasonably entertained as to the utter inutility of all that has been hitherto accomplished by the painters of landscape. No moral end has been answered, no permanent good effected, by any of their works … Landscape art has never taught us one deep or holy lesson; it has not recorded that which is fleeting, nor penetrated that which was hidden, nor interpreted that which was obscure; it has never made us feel the wonder, nor the power, nor the glory of the universe ... That which ought to have been a witness to the omnipotence of God, has become an exhibition of the dexterity of man." I find Ruskin stimulating on most any topic. I particularly recommend Modern Painters, which has great insights into art, even though he often seems much more interested such things in geology and cloud formation. His moral sense was indeed formidable, not just when it came to Whistler but also Canaletto (“The mannerism of Canaletto is the most degraded that I know in the whole range of art”) and indeed the whole of landscape painting: “And let it be understood that whenever hereafter I speak depreciatingly of the old masters as a body … I refer only to Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, Hobbema, Teniers (in his landscapes), P. Potter, Canaletto, and the various Van somethings and Back somethings, more especially and malignantly those who have libelled the sea…. No doubt can, I think, be reasonably entertained as to the utter inutility of all that has been hitherto accomplished by the painters of landscape. No moral end has been answered, no permanent good effected, by any of their works … Landscape art has never taught us one deep or holy lesson; it has not recorded that which is fleeting, nor penetrated that which was hidden, nor interpreted that which was obscure; it has never made us feel the wonder, nor the power, nor the glory of the universe … That which ought to have been a witness to the omnipotence of God, has become an exhibition of the dexterity of man.”

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