224 THE STONES OF VENICE III. NATURALISM

sense of men, that the basest class has been confounded with the second; and painters have been divided commonly only into two ranks, now known, I believe, throughout Europe by the names which they first received in Italy, “Puristi and Naturalisti.” Since, however, in the existing state of things, the degraded or evil-loving class, though less defined than that of the Puristi, is just as vast as it is indistinct, this division has done infinite dishonour to the great faithful painters of nature: and it has long been one of the objects I have had most at heart to show¹ that, in reality, the Purists, in their sanctity, are less separated from these natural painters than the Sensualists in their foulness; and that the difference, though less discernible, is in reality greater between the man who pursues evil for its own sake and him who bears with it for the sake of truth, than between this latter and the man who will not endure it at all.

§ 56. Let us, then, endeavour briefly to mark the real relations of these three vast ranks of men, whom I shall call, for convenience in speaking of them, Purists, Naturalists, and Sensualists; not that these terms express their real characters, but I know no word, and cannot coin a convenient one, which would accurately express the opposite of Purist; and I keep the terms Purist and Naturalist in order to comply, as far as possible, with the established usage of language on the Continent.² Now, observe: in saying that nearly everything presented to us in nature has mingling in it of good and evil,³ I do not mean that nature is conceivably improvable, or that anything that God has made could be called evil, if we could see far enough into its uses, but that, with respect to immediate effects or appearances, it may be so, just as

¹ [Ruskin returned to the subject in the third volume of Modern Painters: see the next note.]

² [See Modern Painters, vol. iii. ch. vi. § 2, where Ruskin similarly divides “true idealism” into purist, naturalist, and grotesque.]

³ [See Modern Painters, vol. iii., pref. § 4, where Ruskin replies to a criticism on this passage.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]