On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2): A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and LiteratureRuskin, John
General
On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2): A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature
Ruskin, John
Art; Essays; Literature
The shower has been heavy, and is so still in the distance, where an
intensely bright double rainbow is relieved against the departing
thunder-cloud. The freshly wet grass is all radiant through and through
with the new sunshine; full noon at its purest, the very donkeys bathed
in the rain-dew, and prismatic with it under their rough breasts as they
graze; the weeds at the girl's side as bright as a Byzantine enamel, and
inlaid with blue veronica; her upturned face all aglow with the light
that seeks its way through her wet eyelashes (wet only with the rain).
Very quiet she is,--so quiet that a radiant butterfly has settled on her
shoulder, and basks there in the warm sun. Against her knee, on which
her poor instrument of musical beggary rests (harmonium), leans another
child, half her age--her guide;--indifferent, this one, either to sun or
rain, only a little tired of waiting. No more than a half profile of her
face is seen; and that is quite expressionless, and not the least
pretty.
230. Both of these pictures are oil-paintings. The third, Mr. Burne
Jones's "Bridal," is a small water-color drawing, scarcely more than a
sketch; but full and deep in such color as it admits. Any careful
readers of my recent lectures at Oxford know that I entirely ignore the
difference of material between oil and water as diluents of color, when
I am examining any grave art question: nor shall I hereafter, throughout
this paper, take notice of it. Nor do I think it needful to ask the
pardon of any of the three artists for confining the reader's attention
at present to comparatively minor and elementary examples of their
works. If I can succeed in explaining the principles involved in them,
their application by the reader will be easily extended to the enjoyment
of better examples.
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