INTRODUCTION xix

of all others; it is in fact this which, asserted first in the opening chapters of Modern Painters, I have been endeavouring in all that I have written subsequently, either in various ways to establish or to show the consequences of, if established; and in bringing to a close that section of my work which has reference to architecture, I am desirous of marking as clearly as possible the prominence of this principle throughout the parts of my plan which up to this time it has been possible to complete, and so to guard, as far as may be, my other statements variously subordinated to it, and perhaps in some cases, apparently contradictory, from misapprehension, until I am able to add the portions necessary to their unity, and therefore also to their strength.

“In the second chapter of the first volume of Modern Painters it was generally alleged that all art was great according to the Greatness of the ideas it conveyed-not according to the perfection of the means adopted for conveying them. The essence of the Art was said to be in the thought-not in the language, and the subjects of inquiry laid before the reader were the different kinds of Ideas which art could convey.

“It was assumed, therefore, that all great or, as commonly worded, fine art was essentially Ideal or of the Soul, as distinguished from the lower art which is principally of the body-that is, of the hands, limbs, and sight-but not of the soul.

“There is not a definite separation between the two kinds-a blacksmith may put soul into the making of a horseshoe, and an architect may put none into the building of a church. Only exactly in proportion as the Soul is thrown into it, the art becomes Fine; and not in proportion to any amount of practice, ingenuity, strength, knowledge, or other calculable and saleable excellence thrown into it. This is the one truth which throughly to understand and act upon will create a school of art in any kind; and which to misunderstand and deny will for ever render great art impossible. This one truth I have throughout had at my heart-variously struggling and endeavouring to illustrate it-according to the end immediately in view. In the part of Modern Painters just referred to * the kinds of ideas conveyable by art were resolved into three principal classes-ideas of Truth, Beauty, and Relation; and it was my purpose with respect to all three classes to show, that the Truth of greater art was that which the soul apprehended, not the sight merely; that the Beauty of great art was in like manner that which the soul perceived, not the senses merely; that the Thoughts of great art were those which the soul originated, and not the Understanding merely.

* Third edition, p. 42 [vol. i. pt. i. sec. ii. ch. iii., in this edition Vol. III. p. 130].

[Version 0.04: March 2008]