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You will find stated with as much clearness as I am able, in the first and fifth lectures in "Aratra Pentelici," the principles of architectural design to which, in all my future teaching, I shall have constantly to appeal; namely, that architecture consists distinctively in the adaptation of form to resist force; that, practically, it may be always thought of as doing this by the ingenious adjustment of various pieces of solid material; that the perception of this ingenious adjustment, or structure, is to be always joined with our admiration of the superadded ornament; and that all delightful ornament is the honouring of such useful structures; but that the beauty of the ornament itself is independent of the structure, and arrived at by powers of mind of a very different class from those which are necessary to give skill in architecture proper.
You could not have a more simple or forcible illustration of my statement in the first chapter of "Aratra," that the essential business of sculpture is to produce a series of agreeable bosses or rounded surfaces; to which, if possible, some meaning may afterwards be attached. In the present instance, every egg becomes an angel, or evangelist, and every arrow a lily, or a wing.
They occur frequently, both in my inaugural lectures, and in "Aratra Pentelici," in which I have pointed out the essential connection between the schools of sculpture and those of chiaroscuro. I have always spoken of the Greek, or essentially sculpture-loving schools, as chiaroscurist; always of the Gothic, or colour-loving schools, as non-chiaroscurist.
Idolatry the worship of images is almost always used by us in a bad sense, owing, no doubt, chiefly to the usage of the word in the Jewish scriptures. Mr. Ruskin, in his chapter on the subject in his Aratra Pentelici, points out that it may also be used in a good sense, though he prefers to use the word imagination in this meaning. There is doubtless a frequent tendency to failure to
In his description of the choice of animals for procreation, in the third chapter of his Georgic's, and the 49th verse, you will find it thus written: "Seu quis Olympiacea mieratus praemia palme, "Pascit Equos, feu quis fortes ad aratra Juvencos, "Corpora praecipue matrum legat."
Now I have explained to you sufficiently, in "Aratra Pentelici," what the classical Greek manner is. The manner and matter of it being easily summed as those of natural and unaffected life; nude life when nudity is right and pure; not otherwise. Instantly he followed the natural fact, and became the Father of Sculpture to Italy. Are we, then, also to be strong by following the natural fact?
But I find the materials furnished by Lucca, Pisa, and Florence, for such an essay are far too rich to be examined cursorily; the treatment even of this single lintel could scarcely be enough explained in the close of the Lecture. I must dwell on some points of it now. Look back to Section 175 in "Aratra Pentelici," giving statement of the four kinds of relief in sculpture.
August was a month of feverish suspense to everybody; to no one more than to Ruskin, who watched the progress of the armies while he worked day by day at the British Museum preparing lectures for next term. This was the course on Greek relief-sculpture, published as "Aratra Pentelici."
Ruskin's Aratra Pentelici is full of the most admirable and suggestive appreciations of Greek sculpture in its more technical aspects; but side by side with them are found passages such as the following: "There is no personal character in true Greek art; abstract ideas of youth and age, strength and swiftness, virtue and vice yes; but there is no individuality."
You will find, on consideration, the ultimate fact to be that to which I have just referred you; my statement in "Aratra," that the idea of a construction originally useful is retained in good architecture, through all the amusement of its ornamentation; as the idea of the proper function of any piece of dress ought to be retained through its changes in form or embroidery.
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