Word: artfulness
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Dates: during 1873-1873
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...thinks the object should be to point out to us "the beauties of idea and expression." He likens the present system to that Mr. Ruskin prescribes for the cultivation of the artistic taste, and objects to this, both because it upsets our faith in our old ideas of art, and because, if I understand, it is a system...
...Ruskin's system accomplishes the first of these things, it is able to do some good at least; for, in all probability, our old ideas are wrong. And why should we not study art systematically? If I place a picture of Albert Durer's before an ignorant person, he will doubtless feel none of the beauty which is certainly there. Nor will my saying to him, "This is a beautiful picture," do good. We must all have education in art, as well as in everything else requiring knowledge and judgment; and, in my opinion, this education is best secured...
...JOHN RUSKIN has been spending the greater portion of his life in endeavoring to free the world from an old idea, that works of art should be admired for their own apparent power, for the force with which they strike the observer. In place of this notion, he has labored to introduce a taste for art measured by definite rules and lines...
...become master of the Ruskin mode of thought may at first appear a desirable objective point. But reflection cannot fail to show that, where one attains the desired end, a hundred advance on the path only so far as to upset their faith in their old ideas of art. These substitute in its place such a doubt of their power to appreciate works of true genius, and such a fear lest their ignorance of some technical point may lead them into some un-Ruskinian expression of admiration, that the pleasure which they feel in contemplating masterpieces is greatly blunted...
This principle holds good in more than one branch of education. Modern improvement, not content with overthrowing the old prejudices of the art-world, has crept in among us in another form, and has, almost unnoticed, taken control of our classical education...