Authors:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

John Ruskin Quotes about Art - Page 2

All John Ruskin Quotes Age Ambition Anger Appearance Appreciation Architecture Art quotes Atheism Beauty Business Change Character Charity Children Choices Christ Country Creation Darkness Death Design Desire Dignity Discipline Doubt Duty Education Effort Energy Evil Feelings Generosity Genius Giving God Greatness Happiness Hate Heart Heaven History Home Honesty Honor House Humanity Humility Hurt Idolatry Ignorance Imagination Imperfection Inspirational Intelligence Journey Judging Judgment Justice Kindness Knowledge Labor Labour Language Liberty Life Literature Love Lying Money Morality Morning Motivational Mountain Music Nature Obedience Pain Painting Passion Past Patience Peace Perfection Pleasure Politics Positive Power Praise Pride Progress Purity Purpose Quality Rain Reading Reality Religion Running Sacrifice School Science Simplicity Sin Slavery Sorrow Soul Success Teaching Time Truth Understanding Values Virtue Wall War Wealth Winning Wisdom Work Writing

The art of nations is to be accumulative, just as science and history are; the work of living men not superseding, but building itself upon the work of the past.

The art of nations is to be accumulative, just as science and history are; the work of living men not superseding, but building itself upon the work of the past.

Art, Past, Men

John Ruskin (1872). “The Political Economy of Art: Being the Substance (with Additions) of Two Lectures Delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857”, p.56

Engraving then, is, in brief terms, the Art of Scratch.

Art, Scratches, Term

1870-85 Ariadne Florentina, lecture1.

The entire vitality of art depends upon its being either full of truth, or full of use; and that, however pleasant, wonderful, or impressive it may be in itself, it must yet be of inferior kind, and tend to deeper inferiority, unless it has clearly one of these main objects, either to state a true thing, or to adorn a serviceable one.

Art, Vitality, Use

John Ruskin (2012). “Selections From the Works of John Ruskin”, p.303, tredition

The man who can see all gray, and red, and purples in a peach, will paint the peach rightly round, and rightly altogether. But the man who has only studied its roundness may not see its purples and grays, and if he does not will never get it to look like a peach; so that great power over color is always a sign of large general art-intellect.

Art, Men, Color

He who has learned what is commonly considered the whole art of painting, that is, the art of representing any natural object faithfully, has as yet only learned the language by which his thoughts are to be expressed.

Art, Painting, Language

John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1872). “The True and the Beautiful in Nature, Art, Morals, and Religion, Selected from the Works of John Ruskin”, p.242

The power of painter or poet to describe what he calls an ideal thing depends upon its being to him not an ideal but a real thing. No man ever did or ever will work well but either from actual sight or sight of faith.

Art, Real, Men

John Ruskin (1859). “Modern Painters: (pt.4) Modern painters of many things”, p.83

Great art is precisely that which never was, nor will be taught, it is preeminently and finally the expression of the spirits of great men.

Art, Men, Expression

John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1860). “The True and the Beautiful in Nature, Art, Morals and Religion: Selected from the Works of John Ruskin...”, p.225

The names of great painters are like passing-bells: in the name of Velasquez you hear sounded the fall of Spain; .in the name of Titian, that of Venice; in the name of Leonardo, that of Milan; in the name of Raphael, that of Rome. And there is profound justice in this, for in proportion to the nobleness of the power is the guilt of its use for purposes vain or vile; and hitherto the greater the art, the more surely has it been used, and used solely, for the decoration of pride or the provoking of sensuality.

Art, Fall, Pride

You will never love art well until you love what she mirrors better.

Art, Mirrors, Wells

The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque.

Art, Men, Literature

John Ruskin (2015). “The Stones of Venice”, p.226, John Ruskin

Every human action gains in honor, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. It is the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that, above all other attributes, separate man from man, and near him to his Maker; and there is no action nor art, whose majesty we may not measure by this test.

Art, Future, Men

John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.171

Every good piece of art... involves first essentially the evidence of human skill, and the formation of an actually beautiful thing by it.

Beautiful, Art, Skills

John Ruskin (2013). “Selections and Essays”, p.281, Courier Corporation

I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.

Art, Pain, Two

Fors Clavigera Letter 79, 18 June 1877. This comment was the basis for Whistler's 1878 libel suit against Ruskin.

Nature is always mysterious and secret in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable.

Art, Nature, Mean

John Ruskin (1873). “Pt. 1-2. of general principles and of truth”, p.36

Your art is to be the praise of something that you love. It may only be the praise of a shell or a stone.

Art, Shells, May

John Ruskin (188?). “Works: "A joy forever." The art of England. "Our fathers have told us." The laws of Fesole. The pleasures of England. Fiction fair and foul. Notes on the construction of sheepfolds. Inaugural address ... Cambridge School of Art, October 29th, 1858. The storm cloud of the nineteenth century. The opening of the Crystal Palace”

It is not so much in buying pictures as in being pictures, that you can encourage a noble school. The best patronage of art is not that which seeks for the pleasures of sentiment in a vague ideality, nor for beauty of form in a marble image, but that which educates your children into living heroes, and binds down the flights and the fondnesses of the heart into practical duty and faithful devotion.

Art, Children, Hero

John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1867). “Precious Thoughts: Moral and Religious. Gathered from the Works of John Ruskin, A. M.”, p.77

Remember always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter will be your manner, and the fewer your words; and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim.

Art, Secret, Excellence

John Ruskin (1868). “Precious Thoughts, Moral and Religious”, p.155

All that is good in art is the expression of one soul talking to another, and is precious according to the greatness of the soul that utters it.

Art, Greatness, Expression

John Ruskin (1853). “The Stones of Venice: The fall”, p.188

Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture, considered as a subject of fine art.

Art, Architecture, Fine

John Ruskin (2015). “Lectures on Architecture and Painting”, p.82, John Ruskin

Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.

Art, Men, Sight

John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.7

Science has to do with facts, art with phenomena. To science, phenomena are of use only as they lead to facts; and to art, facts are of use only as they lead to phenomena.

Art, Science, Use

John Ruskin (1897*). “Stones of Venice”

High art consists neither in altering, nor in improving nature; but in seeking throughout nature for 'whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure;' in loving these, in displaying to the utmost of the painter's power such loveliness as is in them, and directing the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle emphasis.

Art, Winning, Lovely

John Ruskin (1859). “Modern Painters: (pt.4) Modern painters of many things”, p.35

Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth. I find this more and more every day: an infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all the truly great men. It is sure to involve a relative intensity of disdain towards base things, and an appearance of sternness and arrogance in the eyes of all hard, stupid, and vulgar people

Art, Stupid, Eye

John Ruskin (1872). “The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9”, p.38

Cookery means…English thoroughness, French art, and Arabian hospitality; it means the knowledge of all fruits and herbs and balms and spices; it means carefulness, inventiveness, and watchfulness.

Art, Food, Mean

Science studies the relations of things to each other: but art studies only their relations to man.

Art, Science, Men

John Ruskin (1853). “The Stones of Venice: The fall”, p.36

You May Also Like: