III. NATURALISM VI. THE NATURE OF GOTHIC 231

who bring discredit on all selection by the silliness of their choice; and this the more, because the very becoming a Purist is commonly indicative of some slight degree of weakness, readiness to be offended, or narrowness of understanding of the ends of things: the greatest men being, in all times of art, Naturalists, without any exception; and the greatest Purists being those who approach nearest to the Naturalists, as Benozzo Gozzoli and Perugino.¹ Hence there is a tendency in the Naturalists to despise the Purists, and in the Purists to be offended with the Naturalists (not understanding them, and confounding them with the Sensualists); and this is grievously harmful to both.

§ 63. Of the various forms of resultant mischief it is not here the place to speak; the reader may already be somewhat wearied with a statement which has led us apparently so far from, our immediate subject. But the digression was necessary, in order that I might clearly define the sense in which I use the word Naturalism when I state it to be the third most essential characteristic of Gothic architecture. I mean that the Gothic builders belong to the central or greatest rank in both the classifications of artists which we have just made; that considering all artists as either men of design, men of facts, or men of both, the Gothic builders were men of both; and that again, considering all artists as either Purists, Naturalists, or Sensualists, the Gothic builders were Naturalists.

§ 64. I say first, that the Gothic builders were of that central class which unites fact with design; but that the

at least it would be so if it could be seen beside a real group of Swiss girls. The poems of Rogers, compared with those of Crabbe,2 are admirable instances of the healthiest Purism and healthiest Naturalism in poetry. The first great Naturalists of Christian art were Orcagna and Giotto.

¹ [For Ruskin’s numerous references to these painters, see General Index; and especially see for Gozzoli,Modern Painters, vol. ii. (Vol. IV. p. 320); and for Perugino, Ariadne Florentina, § 72]

² [Ruskin included Crabbe among the modern poets whom everybody should read: see Elements of Drawing, § 258; and quoted from him in Modern Painters, vol. iv. ch. iii. § 24 n.]

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