Art and Morality: John Ruskin

Art and Morality : John Ruskin on the Function of Fine Arts

John Ruskin (1819–1900), a leading English art critic and social thinker of the Victorian era, was deeply influenced by the Romantic Movement's emphasis on emotion, nature, and the spiritual dimension of art. As a critic, Ruskin extended the Romantic legacy by advocating that art should not merely aim to please but should also serve a higher moral and spiritual purpose. In his writings, particularly in works like Modern Painters and The Stones of Venice, Ruskin argued that true art is a reflection of divine beauty and must align with moral and ethical principles. He believed that the function of art was intertwined with the moral and spiritual upliftment of society, a view that placed him in stark contrast with those who saw art as an autonomous sphere. R. A. Scott-James, in his critical analysis of Ruskin's theories, explores the complexities and contradictions in Ruskin's belief that art should serve as a moral teacher, while also addressing the inherent challenges and limitations of this perspective.

The Age-Old Controversy: Art Vs Morality:

The function of Fine Arts is frequently confused with that of ethics or religious morality in the history of literary criticism. It has been an everlasting controversy whether imaginative literature has to please merely or preach morals, social reform, political ideas, etc. as well. The controversy, started with Plato, is likely to continue indefinitely. No universally agreed conclusion in regard to it can possibly be reached.

Ruskin’s Moral Vision of Art:

Ruskin in the Victorian age was the supporter of the stand that art has principally to preach, that art had divine origin, that it was the "witness of the glory of God" and that it was accessible only to the "pure in heart for they shall see God". Both Plato in ancient times and Ruskin in the Victorian England had taken to heart the moral and spiritual well being of men and had approached art with that bias. Yet both had arrived at different and opposed conclusions. Plato maintained that art by its very nature was bad and appealed only to the baser part of human soul. Ruskin, on the contrary, maintains that art by its very nature coincides with the noblest morality and has almost identical aims. If there is a work of literature which is damaging to sound ethics (Ruskin it should be remembered had Victorian ethical code in view), according to him, it is an instance of bad art, an instance of an art that has swerved from its straight path. To the extent it is damaging, to the extent it is immoral; it is not faithful to itself and its true end. All fine arts must be “didactic to the people and that as their chief end”, he maintains.

Art’s Higher Purpose: beyond Utilitarianism:

Yet Ruskin rids art of all the utilitarian purposes. He says that it cannot be employed for the realisation of worldly goods. It has to serve sincerely it's own purpose and pursue it's own end which is didactic. By the purposes external to the sphere of art proper, he means such things as "houses and lands and fox and raiment." Art has nothing to do with such things. Art promises to present to our view the Glory of God. This is what we call the beautiful. This beautiful, according to Ruskin, does not have sensuous or intellectual meaning. It arises from profound sense of reverence, joyfulness, gratitude at the discovery or recognition in Nature of the handywork of God. The imitation of the external nature, which is God's handiwork, combined with such feelings, creates a thing of beauty in the form of a painting or a poem. The power which the creates the beautiful is termed imagination by Ruskin. It is not very different from Coleridge's concept of Secondary Imagination. This imagination, according to Ruskin, is threefold in nature and has triple function to perform: First is Imagination Associative which "by combination creates new art forms." Second is Imagination Contemplative which "treats, or regards, both simple images and its own combinations in peculiar ways." And finally, there is Imagination Penetrative which probes beyond the realm of contemplation into the region of spiritual Truth, "by no other faculty discoverable." This imagination with three fold nature and triple function is, in fact, unanalyseable when at the work of composition. It creates a thing of beauty with wholeness and harmony. It is delightful and instructive.

Ruskin’s Concept of Imagination in Art and Challanges to Ruskin’s Moralistic View of Art

The imaginative artist of Ruskin's notion is a moral teacher of men, a zealous missionary, and a servant of God. But, Ruskin's position as a critic has to face certain difficulties, and he was fully conscious of them. If the perception of beauty which art embodies is the gift of god, how is it that we find it even in such obviously impious and pervert persons as Byron or Oscar Wilde? To state in Ruskin's own words:-

"How does it happen that it is ever found in the works of impious men, and how is it possible for such to desire or conceive it? On the other hand, how does it happen that men in high state of moral culture are often insensible to the influence of material beauty and insist feebly upon it as an instrument of soul culture?”

Aesthetic Perception: A Flow in Ruskin’s Argument:

Ruskin tries to explain, or rather to explain away, these difficulties by his concepts of Aesthesis and Theoria. Aesthesis is the "mere animal consciousness of the pleasantness" which even an impious man may possess. But that faculty alone does not create a genuine work of art. " The exulting, reverent, and grateful perception of it was aesthesis, but not Theoria. Hence, their works, though pleasant, are yet imperfect. They are not the ideal artists of Ruskin's definition.

The Unsustainable Position: Art and Spirituality:

But Ruskin's position here is unsound. Scott James rightly criticizes Ruskin:-

Ruskin admits that this element of aesthetic perception is indispensable in the activity of art; he admits also that it may be present in the impious no less than the pious; from which it follows that this element cannot be judged by moral standards. .." Plato fully admitted this insuperable difficulty, but he was consistent and logical. Finding that the arts were inextricably mixed up in this delusive world of sense, he cut them root and branch out of his Ideal State. Ruskin no less admits that the arts are involved in this "inferior" part of men's nature but seeks to make the best of both worlds by shutting his eyes to the consequences of his own premises. There can be no excellence in art without the inferior aesthetic excellence; yet no excellence is to count, but that which derives from the separate sphere of the Spiritual. The position is untanable.

The independent Role of Art:

"But passing over this difficulty, let us pursue the argument of his own Theoretic ground. We are to assume that the excellence of a work is in the last resort to be judged according to the goodness of the artist made manifest in it. That being so, will our judgment of it vary according to the ethical school to which we belong? Shall we praise goodness according to Epicurians or goodness according to the stoics? .... Are we really to subject art to these difficult and disputable tests of moral excellence?”

Art as Expression, Not Preaching:

Ruskin and all those who want to make art a servant of ethics or religion or social reform, fail to convince us that the real function of art is teaching of any of these. Art has its own proper province. It has its own independent aims and functions. It has to amuse, please, entertain by the presentation of the artist's experience, imagination, and emotions. Yet somehow this fact is not universally acknowledged, and the art-morality controversy is not resolved once and for all. Even in our own times, we have George Bernard Shaw who said that he would not care to write even a word for the sake of art itself, and that his own aim in writing was to convert the people to his opinions and to disseminate his own ideas. Art to him, was a means to an end, not an end in itself.

The Distinct functions of Art and Morality:

We must recognise the independent existence of literature. It may embody mysticism or suggest certain morality or present a social problem or express by implication even a political opinion. But, it is not the function of literature to do so. Rabindranath Tagore said in one of his lectures:

"This utterance of feeling (poetry) is not the statement of a fundamental truth, for a scientific fact, or a useful moral precept.... If while crossing a ferry you catch a fish, you are a lucky man, but that does not make the ferry boat a fishing boat, nor should you abuse the ferry man if he doesn't make fishing his business.”

Similarly one may pick up an idea or two from a novel or a poem and learn incidentally some wisdom. But therefore, one can not call a novel a book of philosophy. To conclude, in the words of Scott James : "The function of the moralist is to exhort. That of the artist is to exhibit. The aim of the one is to influence action. The aim of the other is to awaken perception”.