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152 SECOND PERIOD.
considered Gothic at all; so that all we have to reason upon is
merely, if I may be allowed so to express it, a greater or less
degree of Gothicness in each building we examine. And it is
this Gothicness,—the character which, according as it is found
more or less in a building, makes it more or less Gothic,—of
which I want to define the nature ; and I feel the same kind
of difficulty in doing so which would be encountered by any
one who undertook to explain, for instance, the nature of Redness, without any actual red thing to point to, but only orange
and purple things. Suppose he had only a piece of heather
and a dead oak-leaf to do it with. He might say, the color
wdiich is mixed with the yellow in this oak-leaf, and with the
blue in this heather, would be red, if you had it separate; but
it would be difficult, nevertheless, to make the abstraction perfectly intelligible: and it is so in a far greater degree to make
the abstraction of the Gothic character intelligible, because
that character itself is made up of many mingled ideas, and
can consist only in their union. That is to say, pointed arches
do not constitute Gothic, nor vaulted roofs, nor flying buttresses, nor grotesque sculptures; but all or some of these
things, and many other things with them, when they come together so as to have life.
§ in. Observe also, that, in the definition proposed, I shall
only endeavor to analyze the idea which I suppose already to
exist in the reader's mind. We all have some notion, most of
us a very determined one, of the meaning of the term Gothic;
but I know that many persons have this idea in their minds
without being able to define it: that is to say, understanding
generally that Westminster Abbey is Gothic, and St. Paul's
is not, that Strasburg Cathedral is Gothic, and St. Peter's is
not, they have, nevertheless, no clear notion of what it is that
they recognize in the one or miss in the other, such as would
enable them to say how far the work at Westminster or Strasburg is good and pure of its kind: still less to say of any nondescript building, like St. James's Palace or Windsor Castle,
how much right Gothic element there is in it, and how much
wanting. And I believe this inquiry to be a pleasant and prof-
| Title | The stones of Venice - 2 |
| Creator | Ruskin, John |
| Publisher | J. Wiley |
| Place of Publication | New York |
| Date | 1889 |
| Language | eng |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Title | 00000182 |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Transcript | 152 SECOND PERIOD. considered Gothic at all; so that all we have to reason upon is merely, if I may be allowed so to express it, a greater or less degree of Gothicness in each building we examine. And it is this Gothicness,—the character which, according as it is found more or less in a building, makes it more or less Gothic,—of which I want to define the nature ; and I feel the same kind of difficulty in doing so which would be encountered by any one who undertook to explain, for instance, the nature of Redness, without any actual red thing to point to, but only orange and purple things. Suppose he had only a piece of heather and a dead oak-leaf to do it with. He might say, the color wdiich is mixed with the yellow in this oak-leaf, and with the blue in this heather, would be red, if you had it separate; but it would be difficult, nevertheless, to make the abstraction perfectly intelligible: and it is so in a far greater degree to make the abstraction of the Gothic character intelligible, because that character itself is made up of many mingled ideas, and can consist only in their union. That is to say, pointed arches do not constitute Gothic, nor vaulted roofs, nor flying buttresses, nor grotesque sculptures; but all or some of these things, and many other things with them, when they come together so as to have life. § in. Observe also, that, in the definition proposed, I shall only endeavor to analyze the idea which I suppose already to exist in the reader's mind. We all have some notion, most of us a very determined one, of the meaning of the term Gothic; but I know that many persons have this idea in their minds without being able to define it: that is to say, understanding generally that Westminster Abbey is Gothic, and St. Paul's is not, that Strasburg Cathedral is Gothic, and St. Peter's is not, they have, nevertheless, no clear notion of what it is that they recognize in the one or miss in the other, such as would enable them to say how far the work at Westminster or Strasburg is good and pure of its kind: still less to say of any nondescript building, like St. James's Palace or Windsor Castle, how much right Gothic element there is in it, and how much wanting. And I believe this inquiry to be a pleasant and prof- |
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