John Ruskin- “The Two Paths: Lecture III”

John Ruskin (1819-1900)

• English Art Critic of the Victorian Era
• Environmentalism, Sustainability and Craft
• Social Theory critiquing Industrialism

Before going into the discussion of Lecture III, I would suggest we consider a passage from Lecture II that I came across and deem relevant to Sennett’s discussion of the hand…

“ART is the operation of the hand and the intelligence of man together; there is an art of making machinery; there is an art of building ships; an art of making carriages; and so on. All these, properly called Arts, but not Fine Arts, are pursuits in which the hand of man and his head go together, working at the same instant. Then FINE ART is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.”

Lecture III was delivered at Bradford, England on March of 1859 and is addressing students at a school of design. He posits several points that are relevant for our discussion of craft, writing, and social critique.

“No person is able to give useful and definite help towards such special applications of art, unless he is entirely familiar with the conditions of labour and natures of material involved in the work; and indefinite help is little better than no help at all.”

He also suggests that Decorative art is always fitted for a particular place and subordinated to a specific purpose in that place. Then he goes on to describe how a general definition of conventional ornament is consistent on material, place and its office. These categories affect how “good” the ornament turns out to be. Its truer form will always be based on Nature and the Human form.

“all great ornamental art whatever is founded on the effort of the workman to draw the figure, and, in the best schools, to draw all that he saw about him in living nature”

After providing examples from Greece, Egypt, and the Byzantine, Norman, and Gothic eras, even a reference to Bayeux tapestry, he focuses on the human features/aspects of social life that are highlighted in the examples.

We begin to notice his “activism” as he exhorts the audience to “raise your workman up to life, or you will never get from him one line of well-imagined conventionalism”. This is reminiscent of our discussions around valuing students as agents of change, more than capable of producing papers that go beyond the mere attention to grammar concerns. In fact, he goes on to suggest a pedagogical methodology:

“Encourage the students, in sketching accurately and continually from nature anything that comes in their way… and so far as you allow of any difference between an artist’s training and theirs, let it be, not in what they draw, but in the degree of conventionalism you require in the sketch.”

Although he admits to not having tried the experiment himself, he still promotes this kind of training, to practice sketching nature everyday. He kind of contradicts himself, though, in saying that design is not teachable a claim that we’ve come across in thinking through tacit knowledge in relation to writing. Still, he does provide useful advice:

“Inform their minds, refine their habits, and you form and refine their designs; but keep them illiterate, uncomfortable, and in the midst of unbeautiful things, and whatever they do will be spurious, vulgar, and valueless.”

After describing the middle ages landscape, specifically in the beauty of the pre-industrial environment where the great painters of other European countries were in, he clarifies that these great arts were “supported by the selfish power of the noblesse,” thus paying attention to the conditions of the workmen in England. On the contrary, he asserts a purpose in the modern study of design:

“…for us there is the loftier and lovelier privilege of bringing the power and charm of art within the reach of the humble and the poor; and as the magnificence of past ages failed by its narrowness and its pride, ours may prevail and continue, by its universality and its lowliness. “

Lastly, considering the thin line between forming a market and supplying it, on the one hand, and creating “wasteful and vain expenses” he states:

“it only rests with the manufacturer in every other business to determine whether he will, in like manner, make his wares educational instruments, or mere drugs of the market. You all should, be, in a certain sense, authors: you must, indeed, first catch the public eye, as an author must the public ear; but once gain your audience, or observance, and as it is in the writer’s power thenceforward to publish what will educate as it amuses—so it is in yours to publish what will educate as it adorns”

Questions

1)   Based on the last quote, is Ruskin placing literature, and thus writing, as a fine art? What is the loftier purpose of this art?

2)   Although unable to teach it to perfection, do you see a value in considering the materials used by the worker, and for her to practice her craft on a daily basis? Can we think of concrete examples of how this would look like in our classroom?

3)   Ruskin clearly demonstrates environmental concerns in his descriptions of the different landscapes that the designer is/should be immersed in. Can we incorporate this concern in our classroom by considering context? Should we focus more on the present context in which we are or should we prompt students to study their original contexts? Are there other suggestions that you can think of?

4)  How is Ruskin using “power”?