40 THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE

emotion of admiration, but the act of adoration; not the gift, but the giving.* And see how much more charity the full understanding of this might admit, among classes of men of naturally opposite feelings; and how much more nobleness in the work. There is no need to offend by importunate, self-proclaimant splendour. Your gift may be given in an unpresuming way.¹ Cut one or two shafts out of a porphyry whose preciousness those only would know who would desire it to be so used; add another month’s labour to the under-cutting of a few capitals, whose delicacy will not be seen nor

* Much attention has lately been directed to the subject of religious art, and we are now in possession of all kinds of interpretations and classifications of it, and of the leading facts of its history. But the greatest question of all connected with it remains entirely unanswered, What good did it do to real religion? There is no subject into which I should so much rejoice to see a serious and conscientious inquiry instituted as this; an inquiry, undertaken neither in artistical enthusiasm, nor in monkish sympathy, but dogged, merciless, and fearless. I love the religious art of Italy as well as most men,2 but there is a wide difference between loving it as a manifestation of individual feeling, and looking to it as an instrument of popular benefit. I have not knowledge enough to form even the shadow of an opinion on this latter point, and I should be most grateful to any one who could put it in my power to do so. There are, as it seems to me, three distinct questions to be considered: The first, What has been the effect of external splendour on the genuineness and earnestness of Christian worship? The second, What the use of pictorial or sculptural representations in the communication of Christian historical knowledge, or excitement of affectionate imagination? The third, What the influence of the practice of religious art on the life of the artist?

In answering these inquiries, we should have to consider separately every collateral influence and circumstance; and, by a most subtle analysis, to eliminate the real effect of art from the effects of the abuses with which it was associated. This could be done only by a Christian; not a man who would fall in love with a sweet colour or sweet expression, but who would look for true faith and consistent life as the object of all. It never has been done yet, and the question remains a subject of vain and endless contention between parties of opposite prejudices and temperaments.3

¹ [The MS. inserts, “Build the walls of marble all through instead of facing with it only...”]

² [The MS. here inserts (afterwards erased), “and I have spent some of the happiest hours of my life among the Franciscans of Fiesolé”-a reference to his sojourn at Florence in 1845; see Vol. IV. p. 352.]

³ [This was note 2 at the end of the text in eds. 1 and 2. It was omitted in later editions. The inquiries thus propounded were touched on by Ruskin throughout his works; his most deliberate statements being contained in the Oxford Lectures on Art just referred to.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]