Tuesday 23 December 2008

Ruskin on great art and ideas

"But I say that the art is greatest, which conveys to the mind of the spectator, by any means whatsoever, the greatest number of the greatest ideas, and I call an idea great in proportion as it is received by a higher faculty of the mind, and as it more fully occupies, and in occupying, exercises and exalts, the faculty by which it is received."

John Ruskin, Modern Painters, I, II, p. 11