The Heartlessness of the Picturesque- Sympathy and Disgust in Ruskin's Aesthetics

8/14/2019 The Heartlessness of the Picturesque- Sympathy and Disgust in Ruskin's Aesthetics

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1. John Ruskin,End of Market,St. Croydon

John MacarthurThe Heartlessnessof the Picturesque:Sympathy and Disgustin Ruskin's Aesthetics

John Macarthur s a lecturerat the Uni-versityof Queensland, Brisbane,Australia.

For, in a certain sense, the lower picturesque ideal is an emi-nently heartlessone; the lover of it seems to go forth into theworld in a temper as merciless as its rocks.All other men feelsome regretat the sight of disorder and ruin. He alone delightsin both; it matters not of what. Fallen cottage - desolate villa -desertedvillage - blasted heath - mouldering castle - to him,so that they do but show jagged angles of stone and timber, allare equally joyful. Poverty,and darkness,and guilt, bring theirseveralcontributions to his treasuryof pleasant thoughts. Theshatteredwindow, opening into black and ghastlyrentsof wall,the foul ragor strawwisp stopping them, the dangerousroof,decrepit floor and stair,raggedmisery,or wasting age of theinhabitants, - all these conduce, each in due measure, to thefullness of his satisfaction. What is it to him that the old man haspassed awayhis seventy yearsin helpless darknessand untaughtwaste of soul? The old man has at last accomplished his destiny,and filled the corner of a sketch, where something unsightly waswanting. What is it to him that the people fester in that feverishmisery in the lower quarterof the town, by the river?Nay it ismuch to him. What else were they made for?what could theyhave done better?

John Ruskin,"Ofthe TurnerianPicturesque," n ModemPainters,vol. 4 (6: 19-20)'John Ruskin's disgust at the picturesque is palpable and ex-emplary in passages such as this. For him, the inhabitants ofthe picturesque scene are unconscious of their "untaughtwaste of soul." But for such distress to go unnoticed by theheartless aesthete in a search for tone and shadow is anotherAssemblage

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and parallelkind of waste:the affliction of artwith a can-kerous failure of sympathy.Yet the movement of the pas-sage, from itspropositional orms to the descriptionof ascene, particularand exemplary, s like thatsupposedin theterm"picturesque."We saya thing is "like a picture"notin order to use it as such, but to walkin or out of it, inter-changing, back and forward, he flatness of possessionwithlived experienceor theoretical insight.We might think,and rightly,that this passage s confes-sional, describing feelings that Ruskinknows well. Readinisolation,the passagemight seem a renunciation.In fact, itis an overlyaffectingcall for a quite subtle modification ofthe picturesquethat Ruskinis proposing.Forhim, the pic-turesqueis a startingpoint, one that it is unclearhe eversurpasses. t is the received aesthetic of his age, which hebelieves can be given a cause and origin (lackof sympathy)and then surpassed nto a more complete aestheticprojectfor which the picturesquehad given us a taste. The pictur-esque is "heartless"; evertheless, t can lead us to nobility.Indeed, the movement thatoccurs here in Ruskin'scom-mentary s little more than an iteration of the structureofthe picturesqueidea;we give up the pictureforthe abilityto split viewing into concept and affect. Ruskin's teration issignificant,however,not only in the historyof the propaga-tion of the concept of the picturesque,but in its conceptualstructure.It is on the basis of Ruskin'suptakethatthe pic-turesquereiterates n modernperceptualistculture. Ruskinwrites of the picturesqueas if it were a naturalpropensity otastethatrequiresthe developmentof an aesthetictheorytodiscipline and instruct t. Rathermore obscurely,he dealswith the picturesqueas a preexisting heoreticalproblemofgenre, disinterest,and affecteddisgust.In movingbetweenthese two constructionsof the picturesque,Ruskin inventsfor it a temporalmechanism by which the picturesquecanbe both a presentlack and a historicalorigin.

DisinterestRuskin'sproposal o cure the picturesquewith sympathymight seem to be in oppositionto eighteenth-centurycon-cepts of aesthetical disinterest.The invention of modernaestheticsis synonymouswith the concept of disinterested-ness. In the eighteenth centurythe problemof aesthetictheoryhad been how to articulatethe relationof thingsofvalue and the exercise of taste. Ruskinpointsout thataes-theticism creates an opposite problemof the relation oftasteto the ugly, the distorted,and the pathological.Thisrelationhad alreadybeen problematized n the firstperiodof the picturesquearound the general questionof how toconceptualize a high taste for low objects.In the theoryofUvedale Price this gradientof tasteis merelya tactical mo-ment in evincing knowledgeof the hierarchyof genre.2Weexercise our taste on Dutch paintingsof peasants n cottagesonly to express he liberalityof our appreciationof the land-scapesof Claude Lorrain; imilarly,our love for the ordi-nary agriculturalcountrysideof Britaindoes not signifyaninabilityto appropriatehe Alpsor the Bayof Naples.Price'sinterest n the picturesque,which is to say, in theordinary, n the ugly and deformed,is supposedto be anexplorationof the rangeof taste,so as to better understandand agreeon a common standardof propriety n taste. ButPrice wasunable to persuadehis critics that his proposalofthe value of low objects in evincing disinterestwasnot, inthe end, a perverse nterest n disgust.Afterall, Price as-sumes a specialvalue for the ugly and deformed,which isthat they can improvein our appropriation f them whilethe beautiful is indifferentto us. Ruskin's mage of the per-versityof picturesquepracticeis, then, the repetitionofa critiquefrom the turn of the century,which he musthave been familiarwith throughhis readingof HumphryRepton.But, in general,the exaggerationand critiqueofPrice'spositionby Repton,J.C. Loudon, William

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Marshall,and others is directedat Price'staste and his vari-ance frompropriety.3He had made himself ridiculouswithhis appetitefor views of higglers,and by imaginingbandittion his lawn, and no one would have thought to be con-cerned with the effect of Price'saestheticson the subjectsofhis view. This is the force of Ruskin'spassage,which im-bues the foolishnessof aesthetic distancingwith a sense ofinjusticeand moves the social and political context of tastefrom outside (the choice of objectsproperforgentlemen tojudge) to inside (the subject/objectrelation).Ruskin'spas-sage asks us to brieflyimagine what should be impossibleand must be avoided:that crippledlaborersand tubercularchildren might askus why we look at them "like that."AsI will arguein this paper,much of the mechanism ofaestheticaldisgustcontinues in Ruskin in relation to thepicturesque,except that Ruskin'sdisgustis largelydirectedat the picturesquerather han throughit. But before look-ing in detail at the chapteron the picturesquein volumefour of Modem Painters,I want to examine three relationsbetween Ruskinianand eighteenth-century heorythatallhave to do with articulationsof genre hierarchyand disin-terest.The firstdealswith the hierarchyof nobility in artit-self and Ruskin'sresponseto JoshuaReynolds.The secondconcerns the use of disinterestedness.The last addressespicturesquenessas a descriptionof how the Britishareaf-fected by foreignfilth and melancholy.Like Reynolds,Ruskindistinguishesbetween base pleasureand noble truth as contending reasons forour use of art.Reynoldsthinks that only the lowergenresaim at pleasingwhile all high artrequiresthe development of cultivatedsocietyand conceptualization.Ifwe were to imagine somepersonsinnocent of paintingof greatart(those "from hebanks of the Ohio or from New Holland"),accordingtoReynolds, they would neither comprehend artistic ruths

nor takepleasure.4He offers a verysimplistichierarchyofgenre based on the distancethat can be achieved from theexact imitationof nature andthe particularity f things.5The higher genresdo not call on our appetitesand desires,do not put us in a relationshipwith objects.Rather,moraljudgmentsarecalled on to be exercised overgeneral ideasin the realm of civil life. Price argues againstReynoldsthatthe picturesquewasa kind of generic transcoding; ike, hesays,the playsof Shakespeare n which areembedded rusticand comic scenes and subplotsthatprovidea reflectionon the greatthemes of the play. He neverthelessfollowsReynoldson the issue of detail;finding that the bettergenrepaintersarethose who are not obsessed withmechanicalimitation and who expressa knowledgeof their subjectasgenre.Few recordsexist of Ruskin'sOxford ecturesof 1875on Reynolds'sDiscourses,but the notes that surviveshow avehement continuityof the idea of a nobilityof taste and ahierarchyof painting (22:493-507). Ruskin'smain dis-agreementwith Reynoldsis over his denigrationof detail:Ruskinthinks that the truth lies in practicedobservationand claims that Reynoldswould have agreedwith him hadhe known the earlyFlorentines rather han the mean vanityof the Dutch in painting"thespiculaof haystacksand thehairs of donkeys" 22: 494). A furtherdefinition of theRuskinianpicturesque,then, would be a picturesqueliber-ated from its earliergeneric positioning, one that rescuesdetailed observation romthe odium of technique, and thataddsquestionsconcerning the truthof imitationthatare atthe heart of the Western tradition.The secondpointabout Ruskin's elationswitheighteenth-centuryaestheticsaddresseshe function of disinterestedness.Lowsubjectsanddisgustare included in Price'ssystemoftasteto evince disinterestedness san attributeof a noble ob-server.Priceis anxiousto appeardisinterested t the level oftastein the ruralaffairsorwhich he is politicallyresponsible.

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The scenic improvementso a gentleman'sestate must notseem to be in anywaydeterminedby, or even understood nrelation o, agricultural mprovementsor fear of besmirchingtheirliberality.The picturesqueof the periodaround 1800(atthe heightof whatE. P. Thompsoncalls the EnglishCounterrevolution)s an ideologyof nobility n which goodtaste,consideredan autonomousrealmof judgment,autho-rizedsocial andpoliticalfranchise.6The historyof the con-cept of disinterest n Englishaesthetics s morecomplexthanstrictures gainstsensualpleasure.Its relationwith "interest"is not one of simpleoppositionbut of articulationbetweenspheresof attentionand concern.7 t wasthoughtthat the dis-interestednessnecessary or members of parliament o vote inthe national nterestcould be guaranteedbyhereditaryand-holding.Bycontrast,a merchantmightsee each decision ontaxes,war,or the poorlawsaseffecting changesin the priceof tradable ommodities.Foreighteenth-centuryhinkers uchasReynoldsandPrice,the formation f standards f propertastewithinan aristocraticocietywasanalogous, nterest nlandguaranteeing isinterestedudgment n bothspheres,andthe parallelbetweenthemnaturalizingach.8While Ruskincondemns he picturesqueor itsfailureof sympathy ndaffect, his is not a critiqueof the conceptof aestheticaldisin-terestedness o much asan inversionof the eighteenth-centurypositionsof the interest/disinterestair.Ruskin'sranchiseas adisinterestedrtcritic and theoristcan be guaranteedn an au-thentic humaninterest n the objectsof the picture,a pre-parednesso reject hisparticular icture n sympathyorthestarvingaborerst depicts; hatis, in an awareness f the inter-section of artandpolity.This awarenesss notyet (in this,theearlierhalf of Ruskin's areer) he broaderproject indinganintegrated elationof artandpoliticaleconomy,but ratherconcernshow art tself shouldbe governed. n the eighteenthcentury, he conceptof disinterest nd aesthetics n generalhad functionedas an ideologyof taste,an aristocraticaste orartworkshat were still largelyemblematicof the wealthto ac-

quirethem.Bythe mid-nineteenth entury,art,andparticu-larlyarchitecture, adbecomethoroughly deological n theconstrual f national,class,andreligious nterests.Ruskin sparticipatingn thatprocessbywhichaesthetics hen becomesthe generalrealmof boththe appropriationndproductionofart;he invents he role ofthe bourgeois ritic as a positionprivilegedbyhis interest n art tself,an interestguaranteed ya disinterest n the artmarketor the politicalvalence ofparticular rtworks18:433-58).9The last,and somewhatslighter,point aboutdisinterested-ness concerns the Englishnessof the picturesque.In itsrhetorical inality,we might thinkthat the argumentof the"heartlessness f the picturesque"passagefrom ModernPainterswould lead on to a discussion of ruralhousing re-form in England,an issuewith which picturesqueaesthet-ics is intimatelybound up and with which is it identified.10But Ruskinis not askingus to drop pencils to legislateor torepair hatch in responseto his description.We know thisbecause a footnote to the passagetells us that it is based onan observation n Amiens, which is to say, beyond the re-sponsibilitiesof Ruskin'sEnglish readers.Descriptionsofthe raggedmiseryof cottagersare the stapleof picturesqueculture,whetherin Goldsmith or Gainsborough,whetherdepicted as divertingvisualcharacteroras a cryforreformor both. In anycase, the programof the picturesquein theeighteenth centuryis an aesthetic of the ordinaryand famil-iar,of England. It is curiousand significant,then, thatRuskindoes not find England picturesque.One of Ruskin'smost markeddevelopmentsof the picturesqueis to see it asan issue of foreignaffairs.Ruskin's irstpublishedwork,"ThePoetryof Architecture,"beginswith a contrastof En-glish and French cottagesin which the English one is tooprimand comfortableto please the eye of taste,as it an-swersto "asentiment of mere complacency"(1: 17). TheFrench cottagecan please us because of an "impressionof

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havingonce been fit forprouderinhabitants.... Everymark of dilapidationincreasesthis feeling:while these verymarks . . areall delightful in themselves."Ruskinhastransferred ll that had been familiarlysaid of English cot-tagesto a more extreme,foreignpicturesque.The work isall the stranger or itspublication by Loudon in hisArchi-tecturalMagazine in 1837 and 1838. Loudon had in 1833published his own Encyclopaediaof CottageArchitecture,which wasfirmlyaddressedas a remedyto the degradedmiseryof Britishcottagers.In describingItalian"cottages,"Ruskin describes aesthetic objects in wordsthat in Englandwould soon belong only to the discourseof the sanitarycommissioners:"thefilthyhabits of the Italianpreventhimfromsufferingfromthe stateto which he is reduced. Theshatteredroofs,the dark,confused, raggedwindows,the ob-scure chambers,the tatteredand dirtydraperies,altogetherpresenta picturewhich, seen too near, is sometimes revolt-ing to the eye, always melancholy to the mind" (1: 28).Thisnationalisticdisplacementof picturesqueobjectificationisnot overcome in Ruskin's ater works."In "Of Mountain Gloom," in volume five of Modem Paint-ers,Ruskin discusses the artisticappropriation f povertyun-der sentiments of gloominessand horror.He is appalledthatpopular operasnightly present impoverishedAlpine peas-ants,without the audiences even connecting this literarytoposwith an actual human situation.But this is a simpleenough problemwhere artistic ruthconvergeswith moraltruth, and Ruskin can simplydamn togetherthe lackof sym-pathyand the foolishnessof starvingpeasantscoopted as therosysubjectsof the pastoral.At this same point in the de-scription,however,Ruskinopens a much more problematicset of issues that he cannot resolve: he questionof the gro-tesque in art,the aestheticof horror,and an artthathasmuch more to do with affect than with truth. We mightwonder how this differs romthe picturesquein his condem-nation of it. Yet it is important o Ruskinto make a distinc-

tion here because, as we shall see, his is an immanentcri-tique of the picturesqueintended to redeem it. Grotesqueartand the "lowerpicturesque" s given a foreignsite, inmelancholic Italyand benighted Savoy.These aestheticproblemsof foreignlocationarecausedby dankair,Ca-tholicism, and a habitual use of bad art(6: 405). But Ruskinthinks that neitherpovertynorculturalignorancewouldhave the same affectsin Britain.The "absolute oyin ugli-ness"and "imbecilerevellingin terror" f foreignpeasants s"independentof mere povertyor indolence,"as we see bycontrastwith "Irishrecklessnessand humour"and "the well-conducted English cottager" 6: 399, 396, 389).With an art-less shift in logic, it is only on the Continent that art mustface the choice to disguiseor to enjoyoppression.

Picturesquenessand SympathyRuskin'sdiscussionof the picturesque ormspartof an argu-ment as to the superiority f the workof J.M. W. Turneroverpopular aste forpicturesqueviews.In the chapter"Of theTurnerianPicturesque,"Ruskinopposesthe "lowerpictur-esque,"with which we havethus fardealt,witha Turneriannoble picturesque 6:9-26). The difference s authorial ym-pathy:Turner's ympathywith his subjects eadshim to anoble representation f them even when theyare mean.At stakehere are severalaspectsof the reiterationof the pic-turesque.Like Price, Ruskin uses examplesof the high tasteforlow objectsas an entree to the question of nobilityandtruthin representation.The picturesqueis alwaysa begin-ning and neveran end. For each author,it is genre hierar-chy that is importantand Reynoldswho is both authorityand target.Price'sclaims for the superiorityof Rembrandtover van Ostade areexactlythe same as Ruskin'sclaims forTurner: both artistshave chosen to paint lowergenresfromthe height of their success with historypainting.For Price,this occurs in Rembrandt's reedomof technique and a cer-

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tain negligence with detail;forRuskin,it is in Turner'spre-cision and "sympathy." ut in each case, masterycomprisesnot only a relation to the subjectbut a command of thegenre systemand freedom from determination.Perhaps he most remarkableaspectof Ruskin'sdiscussionof the picturesqueis his acceptance of Price's claim thatpicturesqueness s a separateaestheticcategory.'2Price in-sistedthatpicturesquenesswascategoricallydifferent frombeauty,an empiricalattributeof objectsthat could be rep-resented. Most commentatorsconsider this a less progres-siveview than thatof RichardPayneKnight,who held thatbeautywas an issue of the sensoryperceptionof light and itsvariationsand thus not inherent in objects;picturesquenessbeing merelya descriptorof some of those objectsjudgedtobe beautiful because of their perceptualrelationswith asubject.In most twentieth-centuryaccounts of the pictur-esque, where it is seem as an originfor modernformalism,the more progressiveposition appears o belong to Knight,who wasin fact a more sophisticated hinkerand writerthan Price.Yet, if we put asidethe historicalsuccess ofKnight'sargument,the positionhe argues - thatbeautyisone thing and picturesquenessmerelyan attributeof it - isthe more conservativeone, held also by his quite muddle-headed contemporaries uch as Repton.Knight'sposition,althoughphilosophically engaging, could not have made asmuch sense at the time as Price's convolutedand some-times illogical attempts o put abstractand critical theoriesof judgmentinto the existingcultural formationsbased ongenre. Price had a neat wayof demonstrating hatthe aes-thetic appropriation f the mean, common, and disgustingdid not perverselyvalue these things, nor did aestheticap-propriationundo the double articulationby which objectspossessedsocial and aesthetic value. This waspossiblesolong as one said "picturesque" ather han "beautiful" boutthe dung hills of everyday ife.

Ruskinimplicitly acceptsthe categoricalseparationof thepicturesqueand the beautifuland, what is more, definesthe picturesquein terms of the sublime. Eighteenth-cen-turytheoristswere unlikelyto do so because the sublime isa categoryof transcendence.But, forRuskin,the distinctionbetween the beautiful and the picturesqueis that the pic-turesqueis aparasiticalformof sublimity(8: 221-47). TheexampleRuskingives, in "TheLampof Memory," s ofcottages,the roofs of which in theirdecrepitand twistedshapes,might recall rangesof mountains. The equationhere seems to be a version of the oppositionof nature toartifice.Artis beautiful,naturesublime, and those humanworks hat aregreatlyaged and changed in use or that arethe resultof habitual unconscious practicearehalf-natural.Artifice n its unreflectedpicturesquestatenaturallyshowsthe pathosof human workswhen put againstthe worksofnature. The aesthete'sexperienceof picturesqueness s,then, a sort of sublimitywhere the subjectexceeds the ob-ject, rather han the otherwayaround.We could concludefromRuskin'sexamplesthat the picturesqueis the human;that is, the human seen as nature rather han as art. Thebeautiful is what humans attemptto obtain in theirartifacts;it is, as it were, the human project.Seen as objects,how-ever,all human projects,architecture or instance,arevanitas.They are metonymic, orparasitical,of death andthe sublimityof time itself.The lowerpicturesque s also called the "surfacepictur-esque"(6: 16). This surface s thatof the parasiticrelationsbywhich mean objectsmight producevisual stimuli likenoble naturalobjects.Ruskinsupposesthatthese visualstimuliare so inevitablyappealingand desirable hatthosewithoutspiritualbreadthwill be seduced to look no furtherand will lack criteria ordistinguishingmountain from cot-tage.On the otherhand, the noble picturesqueis a relationin depth. Nobilitydoes not requireus to eschew the surface

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relations,but rather o put this fascination"insubordinationto the inner characterof the object."Turner thus knowsthatthe cottageand mountain each rewardhis sensorium butknows,too, thatthey are not the same;that the cottageispathetic.This is his "sympathy"nd breadthof spirit.We could put the relationof sympathyand parasitic ub-limityanotherwayby lookingat Ruskin'sdefinition ofmetaphoras "thepathetic fallacy" 5: 205-6). Ruskinseesmetaphoras a kind of untruth not needed by greatpoets,who can speakof objectsand scenes directly.The patheticfallacyof metaphorical anguageis that,while it is a weak-ness, it trulyexpresses he affecton the poet who is over-come by the thing described. Ruskin does not saythat thecottageis a metaphorof the sublime mountain,yet it is clearthat the picturesquearousesthe feeling of pathos.We couldunderstand he lowerpicturesquein a kind of pairwith thepathetic fallacy.The lover of the lowerpicturesqueseestruly everydetailof the shatteredroof, ivy-chokedchimney,and dampwallsof the cottage,but is lying nonethelessthrougha failure to be affectedby povertyand decay.The critiqueof the picturesqueas parasitical ublimity hathadbeen made earlier n "TheLampof Memory" s clearlyderived romquestionsof the architectural haracterof cot-tagesthatgo back to "ThePoetryof Architecture."'3WhenRuskinreturns o these thoughts n the passageswe are dis-cussingin volume four of ModernPainters,he mustextendthe scope of the analysis romarchitecture o paintingandfigurepainting;and he does so with the concept of sympathy.The examplesof human figuresand landscapesandbuildingswith human figuresthat Ruskingives in ModernPainters akehim beyond the simple material relations ofcottagesto mountains. In any case, it is unclear whether thegeological time of the decay and weatheringof the moun-tain can be understood without the cottage;that is, without

the gauge of human life.14In a remarkablepassage n "TheLampof Memory,"Ruskin describes the horrorof imagin-ing an Alpine landscape withoutpermanenthabitations; tssublime beauties would be uncannywere it an "aboriginalforestof the New Continent"(8: 223). A scene devoid ofhuman markswill necessarilybe terrible and sublime. Else-where, he discussesthe preferenceof aviewer to "choosefor his subjectthe broken stones of a cottagerather han ofa roadsidebank" 6: 21). Roadside banks are anotherpara-digmaticpicturesqueobject in Uvedale Price and there isno reason that such cuttingsinto the earth,with their intri-cate and variedforms of rock, earth,and roots,could notalso be parasiticalof the sublimityof mountains.Nonethe-less, we aresupposedto understand hat the seeker afterpic-turesque qualitieswill preferthe ruined cottage"togive adeeper tone to his pleasure."Ruskin'sonly remark s towarn that the pleasurehe assumesto be soughtwill be ig-noble without an authentic sympathy. n this case, "sympa-thy" s merelyRuskin'srepetitionof the old axiom thatthere is as much joy in a life lead in cottagesas in palaces.What the noble picturesquehas sympathywith are sorrowand old age;that is, the explicitlyhuman attributesof thescene that arepossessedby natureonly at the mostgenerallevel of the historyof our fall from the graceof creation.Nevertheless,Ruskin insists that sorrowand age would besublime, except that in the picturesque they are"mingledwith such familiar and common charactersas preventtheobject frombecoming perfectlypathetic in itssorrow,orperfectlyvenerablein itsage"(6: 11). This is anothersymp-tom of the genre hierarchy mplicit in the picturesque,butit leads us on to furtherqualificationsof "sympathy." henoble picturesqueis the sympatheticobservationofsuffering,of povertyor decay, nobly endured by unpretendingstrengthof heart. Nor only unpretending but unconscious. Ifthere be visible pensiveness in the building, as in a ruined ab-

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bey,it becomes,or claims o becomebeautiful; ut thepictur-esquenesss in theunconscious uffering, the look thatan oldlabourer as,notknowinghat here s anything atheticn hisgreyhair,andwithered rms,andsunburnt reast ... [Betweenthe 'extremes' f the admitted athosof the ruinedabbeyandthesweptproprietiesnd neatnessof modernEngland] . . thereis the unconscious onfession f thefactsof distress nddecay,in by-words;heworld's ardworkbeing gonethrough llthewhile,andno pityasked or,norcontempt eared. 6: 14-15)At the most obviouslevel, human miseryis being natural-ized here, and with this its causes in materialpoverty hatmust have seemed a fact of life to Ruskin beforehe beganto think on the systemicaspectsof the maldistributionofwealth. But Ruskin's nsistence on the unconsciousnessofsuffering s more or less explicitlypolitical in the terms ofhis day.Clearly,what would not be allowed in the noblepicturesqueis the knowledgeof sufferingon the partof thepersonsviewed, who might then call on the sympathyof thenoble viewer in a less than abstractway.This is follows theeighteenth-centurydistinctionof a deservingpoorfrom themendicant poor.l5In a laterpiece entitled "OfVulgarity,"Ruskindescribes"sympathy"s an attributeof the well-bredgentleman who is kind but reserved(7: 343-62). He arguesagainstthose who would misunderstand his reserveas alack of sympathy.Ruskinthinks that reserve s not a failureto be generouswith one's self but an acute realizationof

2. William Hunt, The Blessing

class. "Ina greatmany respectsit is impossiblethat heshould be open except to men of his own kind.... By theveryacuteness of his sympathyhe knowshow much he cangive to anybody . . and would be glad to give more if hecould. [But]whateverhe said a vulgarman would misinter-pret" 7: 347-48). The poormust thus be unaware of theirplight and the noble viewer must not speakwith them.Althoughsympathymight lead to charityat a latertime,within the space of the aesthetic appropriationt is a rela-tively specialized concept of feeling, or lack of it, in art.It isan attributeof the observernot a relation with the scene.Ruskin'sdemonstrationof the veracityof his definition ofthe picturesqueis a comparisonof two printsof windmillsby Clarkson Stanfield and by Turner. Ruskinbegins withthe rhetoricalclaim that we will find Stanfield'sprintthemore attractivebut that he can persuadeus that Turner's sthe better,not least because it refuses to be attractive or us.Turner, it seems, has been limited in his attemptsto pleaseus by keeping his mill in a reasonably erviceable condi-tion, while Stanfield has sought out, and found with an evi-dent delight, a mill packedwith features of tone and line,and incidentallyso decrepitthat it would doubtlessbe theruin of any community who depended on it. But all this ismildlyhumorous,for Stanfieldhas changed a realpovertyinto an imaginaryeye-pleasingone. The conceit deservesridicule. Stanfieldtries to please even if this requireshim toexaggerate,while Turner refusespleasurefor the statementof generaltruths.There is also a question of salary n all ofthis. Ruskin writes for Turnerand forus, not for Stanfield,who has been invited into the argumentonly to be ex-cluded. Stanfield'sproblemis differentfrom thatof theliberalviewer;he has been paid to overcome his feelingsat the sight of povertyand decay. Unlike Turner,whostruggleswith his genius, Stanfieldhas "pursuedhis career"as a master of the lowerpicturesque,a choice thatmayhavecost him dearly n the hardeningof his heart.

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3. "ThePicturesqueof Windmills,"comparisonofpaintings by ClarksonStanfield and J. M. W. TurnerTurner'ssympathyhas lead him to a depiction of a mill that"marks his greatfact of windmill nature"by a representa-tion of itsfunction:an accurate delineation of the partsandthroughthe inclusion of an abandonedmill stone that al-ludes to its internal mechanism. Ruskinwrites as if Turnerhas provided,rather han depicted, a serviceablemill; andwhile this passageof thought might seem "sympathetic"ousers of mills, this is only the firststageto Ruskin'sratherdarkerand deeper account of Turner'ssympathy:"he feelssomething pensive about it. It is poor property.... Turningarounda couple of stones forthe mere pulverisationof hu-man food is not noble work for the winds. So, also of all lowhuman labour to which one sets human souls.... All menhave felt it so this grindingat the mill, whether it be breezeor soul that is set to it"(6: 18-19). Turner'ssympathy, hen,

is to know to be glad that he is not a manual laborerand tohave the good mannersnot to displayhis relief to those lessfortunate.

DisgustTo takethe analysisof the heartlessnessof the picturesquefurtherwe need to returnfrom Ruskin'sovertdiscussionof"sympathy"o his rhetoric and the place of disgustwithin it.Anotherpassagecondemning the picturesquethat is oftenquoted describesstarvingScots crofters.In a spectacularwordpainting,Ruskingivesa page and a half of descriptiveapprobationof Highland scenerystructuredonly by therhythmicprosethatrepresents he passageof his eye acrossthe imagined scene. The fluid eye hesitatesmomentarily n

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the middle of the passagewhen catching on the carcassof aewe, and this is carefullycalculated to cut the more deeplywhen Ruskin finishesby focusing in on a small section ofthe view, on a starvingman and boy:"the child's wastedshoulders,cuttinghis old tartan acketthrough,so sharpthey are"(7: 268-69). The rhetoricalstructureof "OfMountain Gloom" is similar. On a walkin the Alpine for-estsof Savoy,Ruskinhalts his torridprose descriptionof thescenerywhen he arrivesat the mountainvillage,which isa "dark nd plague-likestainin the midst ofgentle land-scape"(6: 389). This turn in the rhetoricalstructure saffectivethroughan unexpectedchange in the statusof de-scription.Ruskininduces in the readera stateof airy,ocu-lar,distanced observationbeforesharply ntrudingwithhuman reference and a moralargument.The passagesbe-gin ekphrasis:n the verbaldescriptionof a visualrepresen-tation,we hear the picturethat Ruskinsees. But then at thesightof human miserywe are jolted,disgusted(at the ob-jectsand then at ourselvesforaestheticizingthem), and werealizethat the descriptionRuskingivesus is not mediatedvisualexperience, it is the positionhe argues against.Thedescription-minus-arguments the rhetoricalplace of thepicturesque-without-sympathy,nd disgustis the momenton which this shift in rhetoricturns.16The passageon picturesqueheartlessness hatbegan this es-sayis consistentwith these passages n itsrhetoricalpatternalthoughit uses disgustand affectingdescription n a morecomplicated way. Althoughthe passagequoted is all pejora-tive, a long footnotegivesa descriptionof innocent visualpleasuresfrom which disgustand sympathywill awaken us.Ruskin introducesthe note as an entryin his diaryabout a"happywalk"along the Somme. The diaryentrymakeswonderfullyclear that the heartlessnesshe described is thegeneralizationof a particularexperienceof his own. The"feverishmiseryof the lower quarterof the town" describedin the body of the text is, in fact,Amiens.The decrepit

buildingsare the cottagesof gloomy spinnersand dyers.The faces of laborersand the green waterand soakingwrecks of boats match the reflexive sentences at the end ofthe note.AnoldflamboyantGothicchurch,whoserichly raceried ut-tresses loped ntothefilthystream; all exquisitely ictur-esqueand no less miserable.We delight n seeingthefiguresnthesepushing hemabout he bitsofbluewater,n Prout's raw-ings;but asI looked o-day t the unhealthyace andmelancholymien of the man n the boatpushinghis loadofpeatsalong heditch, .. I could nothelpfeelinghowmany uffering ersonsmustpay ormy picturesqueubjectandhappywalk. 6: 20)George Landowwrites that the inclusion of the note showsthatRuskin"could not help feeling."17RobertHewisonthinks it a "documentaryouch" thatsupports he bodytext,aswell the generaltheme of Ruskindistancinghimselffromthe picturesqueas his social conscience is awakened.'8But the text is much more complex, paradoxical,and recur-sive than that. This is more than one of Ruskin's amous in-consistencies;it is a deliberatepolyphony.The Ruskin ofthe bodytext accuses the Ruskin atAmiens of a monstrousheartlessness.There is reasonto think thaton his happywalk at Amiens Ruskin ooksto takepleasureby findinga scene to compareto a particulardrawingby SamuelProut.19His reflectionon the cost of his experience is as for-mulaic as a memento mori and does not answer the scornof the passagenor equate with the concept of sympathyout-lined earlierin the chapter.In fact,his reaction in the diarynote is much closer to those lovers of the lower picturesquedescribedimmediatelyafter n the text as "innocent of evilbut not broadin thought,"who might cultivatetheir taste"notwith any special view to artistic,but merelyhumaneeducation"(6: 21-22).In the structureof the chapteron the picturesquefromModernPainters, he concept of sympathyprecedesthecomparisonof the mills and Stanfield'sexemplificationof

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4. Samuel Prout,Amiens

the lowerpicturesque.The heartlessnesspassagethenbuilds our outrageat picturesquepracticebeforethe re-mainderof the chapterpiles qualificationon qualificationuntil the lowerpicturesqueappearsas the inevitablestart-ing point to a love of art,and marks he distinctionof thosecapable of such growthfromboth the sanitarycommission-ersand the personwho "would thrust all povertyand miseryout of his way"(6: 22). The note on Amiens thus lies at thepivotof the chapter'sstructure,at the height of Ruskin'sdis-gust before he forgivesthe picturesque.Prout is a symptomof Ruskin'sequivocation,an exception in that he is, by vir-tue of the genre of his work,a master of the lowerpictur-esque; not a historypainterlike Turner,but nonethelesssympatheticand exempt fromdenigration(6: 22-23).It is well establishedthat Ruskin'scritiqueof the pictur-esque reveals his debts to it as much as anythingelse.20It might have been the case that Ruskinhad difficultyinthinkingbeyond his formativemilieu and was,at the timehe wrote volume four of Modem Painters,developingtheinterestsand beliefs thatwould guide his later careeras asocial reformer.But the formof his equivocation is implicit

in the picturesqueitself.On one count, this is because itfollowsthe track of seeing artisticmerit in the interpolationof genre thatI have been emphasizingthroughout;on an-other,because the argumentis supposedto be self-evidentin our disgustat bad art;and lastly,because our disgustatbad artis put in relationto questionsof the meaning ofdisgustwithin the representedscene.Price, like Edmund Burke,positsdisgustas havingthreelevels of action in the realm of taste.2'At the first,disgustshows the powerof art,in thatdung hills and back kitchenscan be objectsof artisticrepresentation,when we would notenjoy the sightof them in real life.22At the second, there isa limit to this aspectof art;some things disgusteven in rep-resentation:we can imagine variousugly and distortedhu-man faces as studies in character,but a man with a face likean oystercovered in wens and excrescences is too much.23At the third,the taste of the poordisgustsus because thepoorpreferrepresentationsof food, jollytimes, and fineweather. Their fault is to desire sensualpleasuresso muchthatthey misunderstand he contractof mimesis; wantingtohave in representation hings longed-forbut unobtainablein life. My point has been to show that Ruskin'scondemna-tion of the lowerpicturesquehas as much to do with thisdisgustat the low tasteof the English middle classas it hasto do with the povertyrepresented.Ruskindeploysa three-tieredstructureassuming:one, a realphenomenal affectionof disgust,fear,and sorrow hat he and the readermighthave at real scenes of human depravityand degradation;two, a right approach by noble artists o such sceneswherein they knowwhat can and cannot be bracketedsuffi-ciently in representation;and three, a slavishcompulsion toimitationthatdisguststhose of good taste. This last is fool-ish and dismissible,but when we think on it, such abuse ofartcomes to trulydisgust.Ruskin'sand the reader's aste isaffrontedby the Stanfieldprintin a strangekind of circuitwith our phobic horrorof the poor. Stanfield'sapproachto

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artis merelyunreasonable,but the knowledgeof this leads usto feel sick and angry.There aredifferences,of course, between Ruskinand theeighteenth-century heorists.Pricewasa lover of Dutch land-scapesand of genre painterssuch as PhilipsWouvermannsand David Teniers. Ruskin includes a chapteron these artistsin volume five of ModernPainters, he introductionto whichincludes the memorablequip that "all their life and workisthe same sortof mystery o me as the mind of my dog whenhe rolls on carrion" 7: 363). Ruskin's aste thus differs romthatof Price, but their mechanism forconfrontingthe low inartis the same. Servileartis not simplyan unreasonableuseof art,but an affront o reason that leads to it own affects; hatis, to disgust.It is unclearwhetherRuskin had readPrice with attentiontothe details of his theoryof disgust.24n anycase, he wouldhave little use for it. Because he thinksthe beautyand nobil-ityof artlie in its relationswith the world,he cannot believe(asdoes Price) thatpartsof the worldarebeneath representa-tion yet capableof ennoblement by the choice of the artist oobjectifythem. He neverthelesshas a theoryof disgust.ThemanuscriptRuskinaniapublished in the LibraryEdition withvolume two of ModernPainters ncludes largelycompletenotes fora chapteron awe and horror 4: 371-81). The edi-tors do not know whether it was intended for inclusion involume two or for a revision.They point out thatsome of thewords and phrases, ncluding "Of Mountain Gloom,"areused in later volumes. The point of these notes seems to beto distinguishthe experienceof the sublime froma love ofhorror.25ustas he does laterwith the picturesque,Ruskindrawsa line between rightand wronguses of horror.Thereis a shallowenjoymentof the affect of being frightenedand atrue horrorat the evil of the worldwherein "thereoughtsurelybe times when we feel its bitterness,and perceive thisawfulglobe of oursas it is indeed, one pallid charnelhouse,

- a ball strewedbrightwith human ashes,glaringin itspoised swayto and fro beneath the sun thatwarms t, allblindingwhite with death frompole to pole" (4: 376).Ruskin's opic is the horrorand fear of the terriblesublime,but he had alreadydefined the picturesqueas a parasiticalsublimityand his viewson disgustare consistent. "Disgust,properlyso called, is a minor degree of horror elt respectingthings ignoblypainful oroffensive" 4: 372).26Ruskin thinksthat horror s evokedby artists magininga "bodymore orless subjectedto visible decay:as in the skeleton dances ofRetsch.A 'horrible'death is one in which the laws of life areviolentlyand unnaturally nterruptedwith such infliction ofpain as natureusuallyforbids:as in the body's being tornordashed to pieces - or burnt" 4: 371). It is worthremem-beringat this point the skeletalfiguresof the Highlandshepherds.27 he horror hat Ruskin uses to tell theunrepresentable actsof the Highlandclearancesis the boy'svisibleskeleton,his walkingdeath. For the viewer of thelowerpicturesque,whom Ruskinreproacheshere, such ascene in life would presumablydisgust(it being a minor andignoble horror o starve o death), but still remainsomethingamenable to being depicted as "character"n painting.Ruskin titlesone fragmentof the notes "SupplementaryNotes on TerrorArisingfromWeakness of Health." He refersto the charactersand worksof Keatsand Coleridge, but thepassagecould also be thought of as foreknowledgeof his latermadnessand hyperaesthesia.Ruskin describesthe reactionsof a farmerand a poet when coming acrossa snake.Thefarmerkills it and "proceeds n his walk - whistling.A sickand sorrowfulpoet, meeting the same creature,pauses -watches,follows and irritates t - takesstrangepleasureinlooking into its eyes, and hearingit hiss"(4: 380). This is acourseof action thatRuskin does not recommend and thatcan be forgivenonly if it results n "Lamia" r "Christabel"(or,perhaps,the worksof JohnRuskin).What is it to saythat

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disgustis an ignoble form of this encounter with inhumanevil? We could conclude our tour of the Ruskinianpictur-esque by defining the picturesqueas an ignoble parasitic as-cination with human degradation,which can be forgivenif itis the startof something better.

Ruskinand the PicturesqueDespite Ruskin'svehement condemnation of it in someplaces, his workis indebted to earlierwriterson the pictur-esque; and in general terms,his workcan be understood tobe a development of picturesquesensibility.But it is also thecase thatour image of the picturesqueis, to a large degree,one received throughRuskin. To the extent thatwe think ofthe picturesqueas a general aesthetic concept, rather hanone particular o its eighteenth-centuryinventors,it is inRuskin'scondemnation of the picturesquethat the conceptis completed. Ruskintells us that the picturesqueis akindfacile preoccupationwith visual qualities thatblind the weakminded to human suffering.The picturesqueleads to un-seemly interests and Ruskin'sdisgustat picturesquenessis anexact parallelto the picturesqueviewer'shaving forgottentobe disgusted.There are two interesting aspectsto this para-doxical denunciation. First,Ruskin'sdenunciation takestheform of an unacknowledgedreiterationof the problem ofconceptualizing disgustthat is fundamental to eighteenth-centurypicturesquetheory.Second, forRuskinto repeattheproblematicof disgustas if it were an aspect of his historicaldistance from the picturesque (rather han an integralpartofthe picturesquethematic) is, in a strange way, adevelopment of the eighteenth-centurypicturesque.Ruskin'suse of the picturesqueas a kind of horsd'oeuvre to his ownprojectcompletes the picturesque,gives it the temporalmechanism by which this theoryof ruralgenre paintingandproperty mprovementcould become a general aestheticprinciple.

Since Ruskin, t is commonplaceto explainthe judgmentoftaste n itsdifferencenot onlyfrominterested udgment, romconceptualperfectionand the restof the Kantianapparatus,butalso from a naiveaestheticism, rompositions hat Ruskinwouldhave saidlackedsympathy nd that arethesedayscalled"uncritical."HeinrichW1olfflin, ikolausPevsner,SusanSontag,RobertSmithson,and Yve-AlainBois have all playedon the idea of the picturesqueas a kindof transhistoricalprecursor.28he picturesque hatRuskinreceivedwas a theoryof how tastecould be normalizedwithinan elite and in relationto objectsappropriatedy that elite. AfterRuskin,andsincethe generalagreementon the impossibility f an objectiveaesthetics, he picturesquehasbecome availableas the exampleof a nafveaestheticof the observing ubject.The picturesqueis usuallyevoked n the present ense asa pejorative,butthenrestored o privilegebybeing givenasthe originof modernperceptualist ulture.Justasthe eighteenth-century icturesquewas fixatedon genretranscodingon the mechanismsbywhicha high taste or low objectscould be normalizedanddisplayedasvirtu),so the picturesque ince Ruskinhas been a site ofhistoricaltranscoding, eeping open the placeof "taste"nmodernaesthetictheory.The picturesque tands or a historicaloriginora present ack: t is atonce the originof modernist,politicallynuancedformalismandwhatdistinguishespopularfromprogressiveaste.This confusion is not some fault in thecommentaryon the picturesque whether n Ruskinorlater).The historical uccess of the picturesquehas been in itsgivingus an original,Arcadian cene of a formalismunwittingly ubju-gatedto content.This ever-presentnnocence can be evokedatanypointandovercomeagainandagain bythe discoveryofeitherthe arbitrarinessf the content of culturalpracticesortheirpoliticaldeterminations.These nuancesare a moderndevelopment hatcan be distinguishedrom the eighteenth-century nvention of the picturesqueat the pointwhereRuskincompletesthe picturesque n his condemnationof itsheartlessness.

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NotesThanksto RosemaryHawkerandCharles Rice.1.This and all references toRuskin'sworks hereafterare to theLibraryEdition of The WorksofJohnRuskin,ed. E. T. Cook andAlexanderWedderburn,39 vols.(London:George Allen, 1903-12).My citations follow the conventionof volume and page numbers.2. Uvedale Price, Essayson the Pic-turesque London, 1810). Price'sthree-volume treatiseproposestoteach landscape improvementfromthe principles of painting.This aimhas lead many commentators to seeit as a precocious compositionalfor-malism. In fact, there are remark-ablyfew statementson compositionas, forPrice, the principles of paint-ing arelargelythose of its genre sys-tem and the objectsand ornamentsof these genres.A crucialpassageisin the "Essayon PicturesqueArchi-tecture,"2: 329, where Price issometimes thought to saythat, ifexamined as compositions,there isno difference between the work ofClaude and of Ostade. See, forinstance,MartinPrice, "ThePicturesque Moment," in FromSensibilityto Romanticism,ed.FrederickW. Hilles and HaroldBloom (New York:Oxford Univer-sityPress, 1965). In fact,what hesaysis that the correspondences oftheirpalacesand cottages arepleas-ing because they offer the viewerthe possibilityof transcodingthegenre hierarchy.3. See Humphry Repton,"A Letterto Uvedale Price,"publishedinPrice, Essayson the Picturesque,3:3-21. See also Repton'sdescriptionof the generic height of gardenandlandscapein J. C. Loudon, ed., TheLandscapeGardeningof the LateHumphryRepton Esq. (London,1840), 365. There are, in Repton,

moments of concern that theexercise of picturesquetaste ismaterially o the disadvantageofagriculturalworkers; orinstance,inFragment32 whereRepton reportshis meeting with a laborer orced toa mile furtherbecause he is forbid-den to cross a park(TheLandscapeGardening, 535). Both Loudon, inhis firstbook,and Marshallareantipicturesqueand deny the sepa-ration of agriculturaland scenic im-provement. See J.C. Loudon,ATreatiseon Forming,Improving ndManagingCountryResidences Lon-don, 1806),and William Marshall,On the LandedProperty f England,An Elementaryand PracticalTrea-tise;Containingthe Purchase, heImprovementnd the Managementof Landed Estates (London, 1804).4. SirJoshuaReynolds,Discourseson Art,ed. Robert R. Wark(NewHaven: Yale UniversityPress,1975), Discourse 13, 233.5. Reynolds explainsthis point inDiscourse 13 and gives it as themechanism of comparison and rela-tive hierarchybetween paintingandthe other arts ncluding architec-ture and gardening. Reynolds'sstrongargument that all paintersshould strivefor the grandmanner,while he himself preferredandpracticed a kind of elegant rusticity,was remarkedas inconsistentat thetime, see especially William Blake'smarginalia, n ibid.,Appendix 1.6. See E. P. Thompson, The Mak-ing of the English WorkingClass(Hammondsworth:Penguin, 1963).7. JeromeStolnitz, "On the Originsof 'AestheticDisinterestedness,"'JournalofAestheticsandArt Criti-cism 20 (1961): 131-43.8. This idea of a republicof tastemirroring he political republic isthe keyto JohnBarrell's eadingofReynoldsin ThePolitical Theoryof

PaintingfromReynolds o Hazlit:TheBodyof the Public(New Haven:YaleUniversityPress, 1986). Barrellhas drawnattentionto this idea be-fore in EnglishLiterature n History1730-1780: An Equal,WideSurvey(London:Hutchinson, 1983),wherethe playon interest and disinterestin governmentand taste is takenfrom the poet JamesThomson.Barrellrelies to some extent on J. G.A. Pocock's variousanalysesof thetraditionof civic humanism. Of par-ticular relevance is Pocock'sessay,"Authoritynd Property:The Ques-tion of LiberalOrigins," n Virtue,Commerce nd History Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1985),51-78, which deals with the author-ity-conferringtatusof land and thepolitical alignmentsaround theproposition hat"land,or realprop-erty,tendedto make men indepen-dent citizens, who articulated heirnaturalpoliticalcapacity,whereasmobile property ended to makethem artificialbeings,whose appe-tites and powerscould and must begoverned bya sovereign" 68). Whatland defendedwas not the hege-mony of one class overanother,butthe freedomof members of the pol-ityand the legislature rombeingdrawn nto a relationshipof pa-tronage by executive government.Pocock pointsout the lexical equiva-lence of "property"nd "propriety"in the seventeenthcenturythatbearson eighteenth-centuryearsofcorruption,but also,no doubt,onthe "proper haracter"n landscapegardeningand architecture.9. The positionof the bourgeoiscritic is madewonderfullyclear inRuskin'sbitter caricatureof himselfas "an architecturalman-milliner"in the essay"Traffic" rom TheCrownof WildOlive, which is asmuch a critiqueof the possibilitiesof criticism as it is of bourgeoistaste.

10. The English cottage epitomizedthe picturesque rom itsbeginnings.The cottage s somethingthatwenowthink of almostentirely n aes-theticterms,but around 1800 it wasa crucialobjectin a nationalpoliticalcrisis over ruralpovertyand rebel-lion. We could arguethat the primefunction of the picturesquehistori-callywas to separate cenic landscapeimprovements rom concurrentagri-cultural mprovements t a concep-tual level. Nowhere is thisbinarystructuremoreclearlymarked hanin the patternbooks forpicturesquecottage design.As a genrethese veerbetweenpicturesqueaesthetic dis-course and Bentamitesocial manage-ment of agriculturalworkforces, ndseveralbooksattempt o have it bothways.In anycase, by 1837-38 when"ThePoetryofArchitecture"waspublished,architectural atternbooks on cottageswerea highlyde-finedgenrewith a markedlynational-istic sentiment and Ruskin'sassertionthattheywere not picturesquemusthave had a curiousreception.For adescriptionof the patternbooks,seeMichaelMcMordie,"PicturesquePatternBooksand Pre-VictorianDe-signers,"ArchitecturalHistory18(1975):42-59, and my"ThePictur-esque Cottage:Genre and Tech-nique,"SouthernReview22, no. 3(1989):301-14.GeorgeLandow n The AestheticandCriticalTheories f JohnRuskin(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,1971),223n, pointsout thatRuskinmaywell have seen G. L.Meason'sOn the LandscapeArchitec-tureof the GreatPaintersof Italy(London, 1828).The firstpatternbook to deal with "Italian ottages"sThomas FredrickHunt'sArchitetturaCampestreLondon,1827)and themost assured s Charles Parker'sVillaRustica(London, 1832).All these areintended forEnglishclients and do

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not opposeEnglishto Continentaltasteon the partof the cottagersoron the partof the aesthetesbuildingthem. It is myview thatParker, ikeCharlesBarry bout the sametime,is using foreign stylisticsources be-cause he wished to use irregularplanning geometries.Irregularbuildingsin Englishvernaculararestrangely ontroversial mongthepatternbookarchitects,becausetheywere held by some to mix the binaryoppositionbetween the politicalandaestheticobjectsthat the cottagewas.These mattersare discussed n myPh.D. thesisThe OrnamentalCot-tage,Landscapeand Disgust,Univer-sityof Cambridge,1989,and a bookof the sametitle in preparation.11. The status of Scotland is inter-esting here, and I am unsure whatto make of Ruskin'sdescriptionofthe impoverishment of the High-landers mentioned later in this text.It could be that this is special plead-ing on Ruskin'spart- he is pre-paredto let some admission offaults with Britainpasthis national-ism on the issuestouching his an-cestral home. Or, on the contrary,it could be that he wrote so com-pletely as an Englishmanas to thinkof Scotland as a foreign place.12. Elizabeth Helsinger, Ruskinand the Artof the Beholder(Cam-bridge, Mass.:HarvardUniversityPress, 1982), arguesthat Ruskinbegins with beauty(and truth)asthe only aestheticcategoryand haspicturesquenessand the sublimemerely as issues of points of view.She thinks that he then changeshis mind and comes to admit thesublime as a separatecategorythroughthe work on the "noblepicturesque"and the grotesque.13. In the "Lampof Memory," hediscussion of the lower picturesqueattention to detail is veryclose tothose of Price and Reynolds,in that

the problemwith the architecturalpicturesqueis comparedwith theproblemof those sculptorswho tooaccurately depict hair. Price makesthe same complaintof Denner, apainterwho he sayserrsby too accu-rate an attemptat detail. See Price,Essayson the Picturesque,3: 317.14.Again,this is a fundamentalpic-turesquetheme recalling Repton'sinsistence on the necessityof orna-mental dwellingsto anchor the lookin the scenic view. See, for instance,his discussion of the role of a deco-rativewoodsman'scottagein his de-sign for Blaise Castle Estatein TheLandscapeGardening,264-67.15. On this distinction, see JohnBarrell,The Dark Side of the Land-scape:The Rural Poor in EnglishPainting, 1730-1840 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1980).16. W. J.T. Mitchell describes"thestill moment of ekphrastichope," inwhich the sequentialand referentialstructureof languageis forgotten nthe will to representation.This issucceeded, he says,by "ekphrasticfear," he uncannysense of thedifference of the visual and verbalcollapsing.See "Ekphrasis nd theOther,"chap. 5 of W. J.T. Mitchell,PictureTheory Chicago: ChicagoUniversityPress, 1994).17. Landow,TheAesthetic andCritical Theories,232.18. RobertHewison, JohnRuskin:TheArgumentof the Eye (London:Thames and Hudson, 1976), 49.19. The scene Ruskindescribes isverylike the printby Samuel Proutpublished in "Notes on ProutandHunt"(14: facing 392) and repro-duced here. Ruskin's amilyhadcollected Prout'sworkand Ruskinhad followed it from childhood, be-lieving Prout's mportance lay in hisbringing picturesqueprinciples to

urbanscenes. Ruskin writes ofProut in the note and might havebeen looking forthis view.20. See John Dixon Hunt, "Ruskinand the Picturesque," n Gardensand the Picturesque:Studies in theHistoryof LandscapeArchitecture(Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press,1992), and idem, The WiderSea: ALife of JohnRuskin(London:J. M.Dent, 1982).21. I have argued elsewhere thataestheticaldisgustis a concept inpicturesquediscourse that is crucialto its political interpolation.See"TheButcher'sShop: Disgust inPicturesqueAesthetics and Archi-tecture,"Assemblage30 (April1996): 32-43.22. "So it is with mostof the pieceswhichthe painters all still-life: nthese a cottage,a dunghill, themeanest andmostordinary tensils ofthe kitchen,arecapableof givinguspleasure"EdmundBurke,A Philo-sophicalEnquiryntotheOriginofOurIdeasof theSublimeand Beauti-ful, pt. 1,sec. 16;asquotedin Price,Essayson thePicturesque, : 324).23. This is my gloss of a discussionof picturesque physiognomyinPrice, Essayson the Picturesque,1:189-203.24. It seems likely that Ruskinhadread Price given his upbringinginthe picturesqueand the fame ofPrice's text. George Landowpointsout thatthere is evidence that heat least intended to do so. In themanuscriptnotes, Ruskinlists Priceunder "Works o be seen" (8: 235).See Landow,TheAesthetic andCritical Theories,221-22.25. Althoughthe notes are certainlyequivocal. Elizabeth Helsingerthinks that they areRuskin'sat-tempt to write on horroras partofhis reintroduction of the sublime as

a central aesthetic category n vol-umes one and five of ModemPaint-ers. See Helsinger, Ruskin and theArtof the Beholder,129.26. My italics. Also "thepersonoriginally capable of delight in ter-ror remainsfor ever distinct fromthe commonplace personoriginallyincapableof it."27. It is possiblethat this passageborrows ts motif from ThomasCarlyle'sPast and Present London:J.M. Dent, 1960)where, in the in-troduction,Carlyle looks into a pic-turesqueview of a workhouseandindigentmen to see them revealedto him as skeletons. This is noted byHelsinger, Ruskinand the Artof theBeholder,154. Thanks KarenBurns.28. See Heinrich Wolfflin, Prin-ciples of ArtHistory:The Problemofthe Developmentof Style in LaterArt(New York:Dover, 1950),NikolausPevsner,Studies in Art,Architecture nd Design (London:Thames and Hudson, 1968), SusanSontag,On Photography NewYork:Delta, 1973), RobertSmithson, TheWritingsof RobertSmithson,ed. Nancy Holt (NewYork:New YorkUniversityPress,1979), andYve-AlainBois, "APicturesqueStroll aroundClara-Clara,"in October:The First De-cade (Cambridge,Mass.: The MITPress, 1987), 342-72.

FigureCredits1-4. The Worksof JohnRuskin,ed. E. T. Cook and AlexanderWedderburn,39 vols. (London:George Allen, 1903-12).

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