The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

I should be led far from the matter in hand, if I were to pursue this interesting subject. Enough, I trust, has been said to show the reader that the rudeness or imperfection which at first rendered the term "Gothic" one of reproach is indeed, when rightly understood, one of the most noble characters of Christian architecture, and not only a noble but an essential one. It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect. And this is easily demonstrable. For since the architect, whom we will suppose capable of doing all in perfection, cannot execute the whole with his own hands, he must either make slaves of his workmen in the old Greek, and present English fashion, and level his work to a slave's capacities, which is to degrade it; or else he must take his workmen as he finds them, and let them show their weaknesses together with their strength, which will involve the Gothic imperfection, but render the whole work as noble as the the intellect of the age can make it. But the principle may be stated more broadly still. I have confined the illus

tration of it to architecture, but I must not leave it as if true of architecture

only. Hitherto I have used the words imperfect and perfect merely to distin

guish between work grossly unskillful, and work executed with average pre

cision and science; and I have been pleading that any degree of unskillfulness

should be admitted, so only that the laborer's mind had room for expression.

But, accurately speaking, no good work whatever can be perfect, and the

demand for -perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.

This for two reasons, both based on everlasting laws. The first, that no great

man ever stops working till he has reached his point of failure; that is to say,

his mind is always far in advance of his powers of execution, and the latter

will now and then give way in trying to follow it; besides that he will always

give to the inferior portions of his work only such inferior attention as they

require; and according to his greatness he becomes so accustomed to the

feeling of dissatisfaction with the best he can do, that in moments of lassitude

or anger with himself he will not care though the beholder be dissatisfied also.

I believe there has only been one man who would not acknowledge this neces

sity, and strove always to reach perfection, Leonardo; the end of his vain effort

being merely that he would take ten years to a picture, and leave it unfinished.

And therefore, if we are to have great men working at all, or less men doing

8. Different.

 .

1334 / GEORGE ELIOT

their best, the work will be imperfect, however beautiful. Of human work none but what is bad can be perfect, in its own bad way.9

The second reason is that imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. The foxglove blossom�a third part bud, a third part past, a third part in full bloom�is a type of the life of this world. And in all things that live there are certain irregularities and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy.

Accept this then for a universal law, that neither architecture nor any other noble work of man can be good unless it be imperfect; and let us be prepared for the otherwise strange fact, which we shall discern clearly as we approach the period of the Renaissance, that the first cause of the fall of the arts of Europe was a relentless requirement of perfection, incapable alike either of being silenced by veneration for greatness, or softened into forgiveness of simplicity.

Thus far then of the Rudeness or Savageness, which is the first mental element of Gothic architecture. It is an element in many other healthy architectures also, as in Ryzantine and Romanesque; but true Gothic cannot exist without it.

1851-53

9. The Elgin marbles are supposed by many per-bas-reliefs of the frieze are roughly cut [Ruskin's sons to be "perfect." In the most important por-note]. Ruskin is referring to the collection of stattions they indeed approach perfection, but only ues and friezes brought from Athens to England by there. The draperies are unfinished, the hair and Lord Elgin, works that were considered models of wool of the animals are unfinished, and the entire perfect realism. GEORGE ELIOT

1819-1880