Ruskin's revision to the Rudimentary series (1878)
Unpublished manuscript catalogue for proposed re-organisation of the Rudimentary series.
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(St Hubert)
remains
64.
In looking through the collection any careful and thoughtful student or visitor will learn much from the juxtaposition of works of art presenting entirely opposite qualities. Thus, having had his attention directed in the last thirteen pieces to the simplicity of Greek outlines and the parallel simplicity of Greek execution and of modern processes rightly founded on it, he will, I hope, be at first considerably startled and then shocked by the petty, crinkly, wrinkly, knobby and bumpy forms of Albert Dürer, and by execution which devotes a day to a dog’s ear and a week to a weed. All these faults, so far as they are faults, belong to the German mind in the degree of its rudeness as compared with the Greek, and to the modern mind in the pettiness of thought and pursuit as opR. posed to the civic grandeur of the thoughts of the Greek; but, after working a little while under masters of this school, it will be found that they have gained in interest much of what they have lost in dignity, and that there are certain qualities, both in the dog’s ear and the weed, which the Greek did not appreciate, which the German did, and which entirely deserve the days’, seven days’, or even nine days’ wonder and work which he bestowed upon them. It is, nevertheless, supremely to be regretted that at the moment when the art of engraving was perfected there was no one but the German master to show of what it is capable - the works of Marc Antonio having been so degraded by the baseness of his character that they became one of the deadliest instruments for the corruption of taste throughout Europe, and are to be counted amongst the most immediate causes of the destruction of the Italian schools. Nor are the faults, even of Dürer, without a certain danger to students who have acute sympathy with him in leading them into feverish and excited perceptions of detail. On the other hand, for the carelessness and idleness R. of vulgar English work the study of him is a most medicinal antidote.A friend asks me why the nearer trees are apparently storm-stricken and shattered, whilst the distant ones are growing happily. I imagine, merely to please himself, but know not why he was so pleased. He very certainly ought not to have been, and the work throughout exhibits, more than any other, his essential, and therefore pardonable, faults. Of his inessential and unpardonable faults we shall see presently a better example.
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remains
65.
A bad impression of the plate, but one good enough for our purposes. I hope some day for the gift of a better impression. The plate is one of Dürer’s finest, and the composition of the mass of hair in the wild man’s head, the leafage of the crown, and the surface work on the helmet and skull, are as good as can be. I should like the crown to be copied with crow-quill by all students, but will not insist upon it.
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remains
66.
A celebrated plate, in many respects fine, but R. placed here as showing the inessential and unpardonable faults of the master, viz, vulgarity in his ideal of womanhood, and carelessness about expression in comparison of mere complexity of detail. There is nothing divine or angelic in the countenances either of madonna or angel, and the entire merit of the work is in the arrangement of its knots or masses and the easy continuity of its engraved lines.
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remain
67—
Other examples exhibiting the qualities of the master in various developments, but all of extreme interest in linear execution.
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Now 71.
68.
This is one of the most interesting of Dürer’s woodcuts; first, in the pretty richness of its elaborate landscape, and, secondly, in its want of appreciation of all the picturesque qualities in the donkey No more curious proof could be given of the R. impossibility of predicting what a great man will do, than that the same artist who engraved the cat and goat in the Adam & Eve should ever have engraved so entirely worthless and stupid a beast as this donkey. . I put this woodcut in our series, however, chiefly for the splendid manual practice in the palm-branches. Any student who can draw one of these with any appoaching the continuity of its sweep and delicacy of its intersections may consider himself a master of the pen.
R.
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Now 72
69.
One of the most interesting pieces in the Life of the Virgin, exquisitely decorative and complex. Few pieces of the master’s work are finer than the old man’s head with the flame-like beard, above the Saint Catherine; or than the rich crown, tresses and necklace of Saint Catherine herself. In what degree the dotted or jagged textures of the architecture are necessary to the pleasantness of the whole I cannot say; but I am quite sure that the composition of the whole is disagreeable, and the lanky pillars monstrous.
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remains
70.
Showing Dürer’s very highest qualities, his perfect use of lines, perfect understanding of form, and inventive power in grouping mass or line, with intense understanding of common-place human character elevated by virtue. He cannot draw a Madonna or an archangel, but a good R. old bishop or a grand old king becomes as real under his hands as wood and ink can make him. The St. Florian and any one of the bishops in this woodcut is to be copied by every student with a blunt pen.
R.
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- 72. R.
- 73. R.
- 74. R.
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remains
75.
The original drawing of Holbein is one of the best at Basle, and the photograph is enough to express its general character. In the use of the blunt pen and watercolour wash nothing can surpass it, & I strongly recommend this method of study to all advanced students, as distinguished from all merely linear or merely watercolour work. Etching is vainly laborious in comparison and water-colour uncertain; while the introduction of local colour in this study, distinguishing it from the similar work of the school of Mantegna, renders the method applicable to every subject.
