III. GROTESQUE RENAISSANCE 151

graceful and refined developments.¹ The figure set beside it, on the left, is a piece of noble grotesque, from fourteenth century Gothic; and it must be our present task to ascertain the nature of the difference which exists between the two, by an accurate inquiry into the true essence of the grotesque spirit itself.²

§ 23. First, then, it seems to me that the grotesque is, in almost all cases, composed of two elements, one ludicrous, the other fearful; that, as one or the other of these elements prevails, the grotesque falls into two branches, sportive grotesque and terrible grotesque; but that we cannot legitimately consider it under these two aspects, because there are hardly any examples which do not in some degree combine both elements: there are few grotesques so utterly playful as to be overcast with no shade of fearfulness, and few so fearful as absolutely to exclude all ideas of jest. But although we cannot separate the grotesque itself into two branches, we may easily examine separately the two conditions of mind which it seems to combine; and consider successively what are the kinds of jest, and what the kinds of fearfulness, which may be legitimately expressed in the various walks of art, and how their expressions actually occur in the Gothic and Renaissance schools.

First, then, what are the conditions of playfulness which we may fitly express in noble art, or which (for this is the same thing) are consistent with nobleness in humanity? In other words, what is the proper function of play, with respect not to youth merely, but to all mankind?

§ 24. It is a much more serious question than may be at first supposed; for a healthy manner of play is necessary in order to a healthy manner of work; and because the choice of our recreation is, in most cases, left to ourselves, while the nature of our work is as generally fixed by necessity or authority, it may well be doubted whether

¹ [For further explanation of the Plate, see below, p. 190]

² [In his earliest architectural essay Ruskin had considered this question: see The Poetry of Architecture, § 206, Vol. I. p. 155, and compare the other passages there noted.]

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