Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture

Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870

John Ruskin

• Publisher: Perlego
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN:
  9700000025897
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

"I must pray the readers of the following Lec-tures to remember that the duty at present laid on me at Oxford is of an exceptionally complex char-acter. Directly, it is to awaken the interest of my pupils in a study which they have hitherto found unattractive, and imagined to be useless; but more imperatively, it is to define the principles by which the study itself should be guided; and to vindicate their security against the doubts with which frequent discussion has lately incumbered a subject which all think themselves competent to discuss. The possibility of such vindication is, of course, implied in the original consent of the Uni-versities to the establishment of Art Professor-ships. Nothing can be made an element of educa-tion of which it is impossible to determine wheth-er it is ill done or well; and the clear assertion that there is a canon law in formative Art is, at this time, a more important function of each Universi-ty than the instruction of its younger members in any branch of practical skill."