Page 23 - History 2020

Ruskin had an austere view of art. It wasn’t just a matter of taste. Artists, he taught,

had a moral duty to be honest to God’s creation (or to Nature as he increasingly
expressed it as his religious faith waned). Artists must faithfully paint or create what
they see rather than follow artistic conventions. Ruskin despised classical art and
architecture. He rejected as false and immoral the ancient Greeks and Romans and
the Renaissance. His objection wasn’t that it was all pagan, but that it lacked artistic
truth. Classical and Renaissance artists merely followed conventional rules and
reproduced conventional tastes. As humanists they arrogantly usurped the Creator
which blinded them to the truth of nature. His defended Turner and the Pre-

Raphaelites against their detractors because they were dedicated to artistic truth;
the fact that they defied convention was irrelevant.

Truth also inspired Ruskin’s love of Gothic. Gothic forms of decoration evolved
organically. Its raw, natural forms that decorated medieval cathedrals were created
and carved by medieval craftsmen and artists who were inspired by their Christian
faith and gave full and free expression to the glory of Creation. Classical artists

merely aspired to follow rules of the genre; their art was false and lifeless.

From this morally austere vision or art, Ruskin evolved a devastating critique of life
and work in the Industrial Revolution. Why were factory workers so stunted and
dehumanised? Why were industrial towns and cities so ugly? The reason lay in its
profound moral and spiritual malaise. This was epitomised by Political Economy. This
was the name given to the theories and policies of economists Adam Smith in the
th
th
18 century and David Ricardo, James Mill and John Stuart Mill in the 19 century
which underpinned government policies in the early Industrial Revolution.

To summarise, these were the policies of the free market; government non-
intervention (“laisser-faire” means “leave things alone”). Adam Smith said the
market, if left to operate freely, ensures by itself that production, prices and wages
will all settle at the right level. Competition does this as if by “a hidden hand”. The

successful businessman is the one who makes and sells his goods as cheaply as
possible, uses the division of labour, and pays his workers as little as possible. He will
then succeed in making a profit. Everybody gains. He gets rich and can invest further.
The worker gets a job and a wage. The customer gets cheap goods. Society prospers.
No need for government to do anything. In fact, if it tries to interfere, say by raising
wages or holding down prices, it will upset the delicate balance of the market and the
economy will decline or even fall.

Ruskin mastered these ideas in order to condemn them. When he published Unto

This Last: Four Essays on the Principles of Political Economy in 1862, his arty fans