Ruskin’s Maze: Mastery and Madness in His Art

320 Pages·1981·17.41 MB·English

by  Jay Fellows

Ruskin's Maze

RUSKIN'S MAZE
Mastery and Madness
in His Art
By Jay Fellows
Princeton University Press
Princeton, New Jersey
Copyright © 1981 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jetsey
In the United Kingdom Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey
All Rights Reserved
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the
Paul Mellon Fund of Princeton University Press
This book has been composed in Linotron Baskerville
Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press booh
are printed on acid-free paper, and binding matenah are
chosen for strength and durability
Printed in the United States of America by Princeton
University Press, Princeton, New Jersey
Library of Congress Cataloging tn Publication Data
Fellows, Jay, 1940-
Ruskin's maze.
1. Ruskin.John, 1819-1900—Criticism and
interpretation. I. Title.
PR5264.F43 828'.809 81-47124
ISBN 0-691-06479-2 AACR2
For John Rosenberg, who showed light
through dark, if not blind, mirrors
and Laurence d'A. M. Glass, Gerhard Joseph,
Sean Sculley, and Marcia Stern, who know
something about the territories around Cy
prus Avenue, Nottinghill Gate, and Stock
ton's Wing.

Table of Contents
A Note on Sources ix
Permissions ix
Acknowledgments xi
Preface xiii
Part One
Strange Chords: Masterful Geometries
Introduction
A Travel Diary toward Nothing but a Dream: Shadowy
Types for Concluding Images and "The Excavations of
Silence" 3
One
Strange Chords of Incipient Orthodoxy:
Centres and Epicycles 29
A. Cock-Robinson-Crusoe Conceit and Other Geometrically
Central Issues 29
B. The Parallel Advance: Panorama as Central Responsibility 38
C. The Vantage Point of the True Centre: Problems in the
Transcendental Altitude of the Self 45
Two
Central Men and Awful Lines: Attempts and Failures
in Mastery 60
A. The Central Man 60
B. The Awful Lines of Time 63
C. Cross-References ad infinitum: The World of the Index 68
D. Mastery, Makeshift and True: Glimpses of "Shattered Majesty" and
"Stately and Unaccusable Wholes" 73
Three
The Frosts of Death 85
A. The Man in the Middle: Mediation as Subtraction 85
B. The "True Centre" as Condemned Space 89
C. Juggling, Trick Riding, and the Avaricious Imagination of Repletion 98
Four
Vacancies, Kindly and Deadly: Sweet Transitions and
Jarring Thoughts 105
A. The Syntax of Architecture: St. Peter's Divided 105
B. Slow Travel; The Extension of Time and Space 115
C. The Dead Spaces of Satin: Transitional Absence 120
viii ' Contents
Five
Circumferential Considerations: Lines without
Beginnings or Endings 127
A. The Architecture of the Index: The Taming of (Museum) Centricity 127
B. The Art of the Provinces: Suburban Efficacy 140
C. The Garland of Thoughts: A Case for Fanciful Extension 143
Part Two
Lucent Verdure and
Asymmetrical Decompositions
Six
Labyrinths of Presence, Labyrinths of Absence:
Initial Experiences of the Superimposition of Contrasting
Designs 159
A. The Theatre of Blindness: Items, Queries, Laws, the Bestiary, and
Originally Invisible Dramatis Personae 159
B. Lurid Shadow, Lucent Verdure: Early Manifestations of the
Centripetal Maze 178
Seven
Capricious Sinuousities: Venice and the City as Mind 198
A. White Clues: Instincts for the Exit 198
B. Colubrine Chains: The Maze of Consciousness 205
C. The Gothic Anomaly: Peripheral Shadows of Madness and Narrow
Caution 212
Eight
The Excavations of Silence: Double Labyrinths and the
Architecture of Reluctant Nihilism 222
A. The Threads of Thought: Unsystematic Intimations of the
Centrifuged Style 222
B. Paratactical Texts of Ripped Immanence: From Ariadne to the
Shears and Penultimate Tablet of Atropos 240
Appendices 275
A Note on Sources
All references to The Works of John Ruskm, edited by Ε. T. Cook
and Alexander Wedderburn, 39 vols., Library Edition (London,
1903-12) will appear in parentheses after quotations from the works
themselves.
Permissions
Selected passages from Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity
in the Age of Reason by Michel Foucault, translated by Richard How­
ard. Copyright © 1965 by Random House, Inc. Reprinted by per­
mission of Pantheon Books, Inc., a Division of Random House, Inc.
Selected passages from The Brantwood Diary of John Ruskm, edited
and annotated by Helen Gill Viljoen. Copyright © 1971 by Yale
University. Reprinted by permission of Yale University Press.
"Domination of Black" by Wallace Stevens. Copyright © 1923 and
renewed 1951 by Wallace Stevens. Reprinted from The Collected
Poems of Wallace Stevens, by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
and Faber and Faber Ltd.