"_ [Ruskin.]
OF CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE
VOLUME III, CHAPTER 13
My reason for asking the reader to give so much of his time to the
examination of the pathetic fallacy was, that, whether in literature
or in art, he will find it eminently characteristic of the modern
mind; and in the landscape, whether of literature or art, he will also
find the modern painter endeavouring to express something which he, as
a living creature imagines in the lifeless object, while the classical
and mediaeval painters were content with expressing the unimaginary and
actual qualities of the object itself. It will be observed that,
according to the principle stated long ago, I use the words painter
and poet quite indifferently, including in our inquiry the landscape
of literature, as well as that of painting; and this the more because
the spirit of classical landscape has hardly been expressed in any
other way than by words.
Taking, therefore, this wide field, it is surely a very notable
circumstance, to begin with, that this pathetic fallacy is eminently
characteristic of modern painting. For instance, Keats, describing a
wave breaking out at sea, says of it:--
Down whose green back the short-lived foam, all hoar,
Bursts gradual, with a wayward indolence.
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