Popery in Prose: 

Ruskin's Stylistic Dalliance with the Scarlet Lady

Published in the Saint Austin Review, November/December, 2006.

“Between that grim cathedral of England and this, what an interval!” exclaims John Ruskin, standing in the hush of the Venetian cathedral of St. Mark’s. In an essay published in The Stones of Venice, Ruskin describes the cathedral in an almost mystical ecstasy. Francis O’Gorman insists The Stones of Venice “offered a form of Gothic uncontaminated by […] Catholicism,” yet it is not the absence of Catholicism but rather its persistent problematic presence that fills this work. The passage on St. Mark’s poignantly registers the conflict of this Protestant Englishman who stands before an architectural embodiment of Roman Catholicism. Implacable in his rejection of Rome, a figure such as Ruskin at the same time seeks to abstract characteristics of the Roman Church, alter them ever so slightly and assimilate them in their altered – and now acceptable – state. This is not to imply that Ruskin fostered a secret yearning towards the Church of Rome, and was held back from conversion by fear of the shame of defection; rather it is to identify in Ruskin the lurking qualities of Catholicism, qualities I identify as a “Catholic aesthetic,” and which can be mapped along the Catholic Nicene Creed refrain of “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.” 

Academic debate on the topic of John Ruskin’s religiosity has long noted his pronounced attraction towards Catholic architecture, usually in the same breath with Ruskin’s 1858 abandonment of Evangelical Protestantism. The Bible of Amiens is perhaps the most conflicted of Ruskin’s writings in this regard. He asserts that “the architectural form can never be well delighted in, unless in some sympathy with the spiritual imagination out of which it rose” – a claim that seems to demand the author’s admission of Papist sympathies. He describes a Catholic Cathedral, and then asks the question, “Who built it, shall we ask?” His answer spans centuries in a simile in which the single Catholic Cathedral becomes analogous to all of history. As this and other publications clearly demonstrate, a strange breed of Catholicity is an integral part of Ruskin’s artistic perspective, even at the linguistic level. 

The etymological root of the word “Protestantism” should not be forgotten. Established by the act of protest, generic Protestantism is defined principally in opposition to Roman Catholicism, a fact vividly demonstrated in the British aftermath of the Reformation. Reverberating Reformation resentments persist throughout the history of England; a history that is not merely Protestant, but is also, and more importantly, determinedly non-Catholic. The relationship of many Protestants to Catholicism is, however, much more complex than mere straight-forward antagonism. Very often, the protest is mingled with an intense attraction to Rome, an attraction based upon an historical, emotional, and especially an aesthetic kinship with the rejected Church, even hundreds of years after the Act of Uniformity. 

This Catholic aesthetic prompts a keen desire to assimilate aspects of Catholicism but an equally fierce desire, driven by aversion to Rome, to deny the assimilation. Many therefore grasp the desired concept, twist it about, and embrace the ever-so-slightly altered thought as acceptable in a Protestant context. An ostentatious example of this can be seen in John Ruskin’s attempt to Protestantize the Middle Ages. As Rosenberg puts it in his biography of Ruskin, “At once fascinated and repelled by the “papal dream,” Ruskin sought to Protestantize the Middle Ages and thus refute [the] contention that the revival of Gothic required the restoration of England to the Catholic Church.” Ruskin desires the artistry of the Middle Ages, balks at the fundamental Catholicity of that period, and therefore seeks to reconstruct a religious identity that allows for the artistry but does not acknowledge the source. 

Examples of the Catholic aesthetic in Ruskin are not merely of this type – glaring, obvious, and almost stereotypically conflicted. His struggle can also be identified on a primary structural level – that of language. A linguistic diagnosis of the Catholic aesthetic in Ruskin has four interconnected parts that, in Ruskin’s essay on Saint Mark’s Cathedral, can be mapped onto the Roman Catholic refrain of “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church:” first, in “One,” there is a desire for definitions, descriptions, knowledge, and authoritative oneness which is demonstrated in Ruskin’s eagerness to be an Infallible Authority – he rejects the Pope, but seeks to wield Papal authority; second, in “Holy,” there is a frequent recourse to the Supernatural and the Gothic in Ruskinian subject matter; third, in “Catholic,” there is a desire for Universality, to supercede the confines of space, and even the confines of “Englishness;” and fourth, in “Apostolic,” we find Ruskin as a priest, eager to teach the religion he creates – a religious collage of Protestantism, especially Evangelicalism, Roman Catholicism, and a vaguely defined religion of Art. All four of these qualities are deeply problematic and require qualifications – a fact that is yet again demonstrative of the desire for justification in the acceptance of any idea that is even remotely Catholic. 

Ruskin’s passage on St. Mark’s displays all four of these Catholic characteristics. Nestled within his description of St. Mark’s, Ruskin presents an evocative and fascinating passage: 

"And now I wish that the reader, before I bring him into St. Mark’s Place, would imagine himself for a little while in a quiet English cathedral town, and walk with me to the west front of its cathedral. Let us go together..." 

He then descends into a lengthy description of this “quiet English cathedral town,” with its ever present “pinnacles,” the occasionally visible “battlemented top and small latticed window in the center,” before arriving at a full sketch of the cathedral and grounds. The description is given with typical Ruskinian flair – encapsulated in a few sentences of astonishing length. Ruskin’s Catholic “Oneness” is here emphatically demonstrated in his tone and the breadth of his prose. Here the authorial “I” attains the status of high priest. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, Virgil leads the authorial “I” of Dante into the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Here a Virgilian Ruskin is not only leading the reader, but speaks without the mediation of Dante. The exortation, “Let us go together up the more retired street,” is a reminder of the common humanity between reader and author, yet Ruskin’s imperatives establish his authority: “And now I wish that the reader […] would imagine himself,” “Think a little while of that scene."  As author, he presents his interpretation to his reader in tones reminiscent of papal infallibility. 

The “Holy” aspect of Ruskin’s prose is more subtly articulated. Through his sentences, he seeks to affect a transcendence of the world, an ascent from the real to the mystical. Arthur Symons, although not speaking specifically of Ruskin, denotes such a move as Catholic in his essay The Decadent Movement in Literature: “after the world has starved its soul long enough in the contemplation and the rearrangement of material things, comes the turn of the soul; and with it comes the literature of which I write in this volume, a literature in which the visible world is no longer a reality, and the unseen world no longer a dream." This holiness, or, as Symons puts it, this “turn of the soul,” is realized by the reader, through the guiding light of Ruskin: 

"And so, taking care not to tread on the grass, we will go along the straight walk to the west front, and there stand for a time, looking up at its deep-pointed porches and the dark places between their pillars where there were statues once, and where the fragments, here and there, of a stately figure are still left, which has in it the likeness of a king, perhaps indeed a king on earth, perhaps a saintly king long ago in heaven; and so higher and higher up the to the great mouldering wall of rugged sculpture and confused arcades, shattered, and grey, and grisly with heads of dragons and mocking fiends, worn by the rain and swirling winds into yet unseemlier shape, and coloured on their stony scales by the deep russet-orange lichen, melancholy gold; and so, higher still, to the bleak towers, so far above that the eye loses itself among the bosses of their traceries, though they are rude and strong, and only sees like a drift of eddying black points, now closing, now scattering, and now settling suddenly into visible places among the bosses and flowers, the crowd of restless birds that fill the whole square with that strange clangour of theirs, so harsh and yet so soothing, like the cries of birds on a solitary coast between the cliffs and sea." 

This is a single sentence, yet what an immense thought is contained within it! The reader begins, with Ruskin, on the lawn of the English cathedral, “looking up” at the details of the ecclesiastical architecture. Both reader and Ruskin are grounded – a fact comically established by the qualification, “taking care not to tread on the grass." This very image is fraught with determinedly non-Catholic imagery, aching with the “dark places between their pillars where there were statues once." After this gesture to the lost statues, probably destroyed in the sixteenth century flood of Anti-Catholic emotion, Ruskin gestures to the communion of saints revered by the old religion, imaginatively reconstructing the “fragments, here and there, of a stately figure,” and thinking it “the likeness of a king, perhaps indeed a king on earth, perhaps a saintly king long ago in heaven."

The Gothic details of the cathedral become more and more pronounced in the ascent, with the “rugged sculpture,” “confused arcades,” “grisly […] heads of dragons and mocking fiends,” and the intensity of color, even when faded and weather beaten. The final vision of the cathedral becomes fully mystical. The “eye loses itself” in looking upon the “bleak towers,” “so far above,” and only sees the “crowd of restless birds” “like a drift of eddying black points, now closing, now scattering, now settling suddenly into visible places." These birds, soaring high above the viewer, can fill “the whole square with that strange clangour of theirs, so harsh and yet so soothing” – a sound analogous to the stir and noise of the supernatural, animating the square with awe-inspiring transience. 

Yet it must be remembered, and will be thrown into sharp relief by Ruskin’s subsequent description of St. Mark’s, that this experience is jarring and discordant when attempted before the English cathedral. Ruskin instructs his reader to “Think for a little while of that scene, and the meaning of all its small formalisms, mixed with its serene sublimity." It has “secluded, continuous, drowsy felicities,” its duties are “regulated by the cathedral clock,” and the dark towers are in a “lonely square,” a thing of past “centuries." He then turns from England, and seeks to attain Catholicity – that which, by definition, transcends space, and attains Universality. 

Ruskin bids his reader “quickly recollect that we are in Venice, and land at the extremity of the Calle Lunga San Moisè, which may be considered as there answering to the secluded street that led us to our English cathedral gateway:” 

"Between that grim cathedral of England and this, what an interval! There is a type of it in the very birds that haunt them; for, instead of the restless crowd, hoarse-voiced and sable-winged, drifting on the bleak upper air, the St. Mark’s porches are full of doves, that nestle among the marble foliage and mingle the soft iridescence of their living plumes, changing at every motion, with the tints, hardly less lovely, that have stood unchanged for seven hundred years."

This vision is strikingly different from the past glory of the “grim” English cathedral, reanimated only through the cries of “the restless crowd, hoarse-voiced and sable winged, drifting on the bleak upper air,” or the imaginative efforts of Ruskin who is, however, ever grounded in the square, and careful “not to tread on the grass." This Catholic cathedral is alive with doves, the Catholic symbol of the Holy Spirit, animated and sanctified, even to the Protestant eyes of Ruskin. The church’s life is metaphorically translated to the life of a tree with “marble foliage” in which the doves may “nestle,” and “living plumes." The English church has been defaced by the turmoil of religious war, yet St. Marks has stood “unchanged for seven hundred years."

Lest we be overwhelmed with the intense admiration of Ruskin, he qualifies his praise of the church with a severe indictment of her members: 

"And what effect has this splendour on those who pass beneath it? You may walk from sunrise to sunset, to and fro, before the gateway of St. Mark’s, and you will not see an eye lifted to it, nor a countenance brightened by it."

Ruskin denounces “priest and layman, soldier and civilian, rich and poor,” those Catholics who “pass by it alike regardlessly." For Ruskin, this insensibility demonstrates an overall unworthiness. They do not appreciate their own art. Rosenberg argues that Ruskin was troubled by his own reaction to the art and architecture of the Catholic Middle Ages. This passage may be seen both as an example of his distress, and as an effort to control it – he has undermined the force of his previous enthusiasm with a hearty condemnation of Catholics. This reemphasizes the aestheticism of his admiration. It is important to note that this passage concludes with another gesture towards the aesthetic: “And the images of Christ and His angels look down upon it continually." Here again Ruskin challenges the Protestant dislike of graven images. His artistic fervor, juxtaposed or even mixed with his religious identity, requires the animation of these figures. 

Ruskin has assessed his English cathedral, has compared it briefly to St. Mark’s, and relieved any Protestant conversion anxieties. He has, as it were, worked his way through the three categories of “One,” “Holy,” and “Catholic.” He has prepared the ground for his interpretation of St. Mark’s. Now, in his “Apostolic” voice, in a characteristically long paragraph, Ruskin presents, or teaches, his Catholic aesthetic: 

"Let us enter the church itself. It is lost in still deeper twilight, to which the eye must be accustomed for some moments before the form of the building can be traced; and then there opens before us a vast cave, hewn out into the (168-9) form of a Cross, and divided into shadowy aisles by many pillars."

He begins by urging, “Let us enter the church itself." The “church itself” may be yet another reminder that by reaching into the glories of Catholic architecture, we are not lapsing into conversion or, as the Protestants were wont to call it, “perversion." When Ruskin and his reader first enter, the church is “lost in still deeper twilight,” yet when “the eye” becomes “accustomed,” guided by Ruskin, clarity and comprehension of the church’s details come. Ruskin immediately identifies the “form of the Cross,” beginning with a seemingly non-threatening detail. 

In a brief passage from his essay “The Nature of Gothic,” Ruskin proudly declares the concept that an object, or group of objects, may or may not be “read rightly." Artistic experience and appreciation may be taught and learned, but there is, if I may so put it, both a right way and a wrong way to skin a rabbit. Only the initiated can read, guided by the hand of authority. Ruskin embodies a varied range of positions, all of them didactic; he is the prophet, the priest, and the artist – declaiming against all false artistic doctrines while declaring a true one, casting incense upon the monuments of an aesthetic religion, and embodying the glory of that religion in his own sentences. All of this is accomplished by his assimilation of the Catholic Church. As Joseph Pearce notes in his latest academic publication, Ruskin felt he “had no need to convert since he was already more Catholic than the Church."

As the outside of the church is enlivened by doves, the inside is enlivened by light and color. Ruskin basks in a sense of his own authority, having translated the mystery of the Church into an aesthetic vocabulary that he can harness: 

"Round the domes of its root the light enters only through narrow apertures like large stars; and here and there a ray or two from some far-away casement wanders upon the waves of marble that heave and fall in a thousand colours along the floor. What else there is of light is from torches, or silver lamps, burning ceaselessly in the recesses of the chapels; the roof sheeted with gold, and the polished walls covered with alabaster, give back at every cure and angle some feeble gleaming to the flames; and the glories round the heads of the sculptured saints flash out upon us as we pass them, and sink again into the gloom."

This church, unlike the decaying English cathedral, breathes. The light entering in “through narrow apertures like large stars,” “wanders." The colors “heave and fall,” across “waves of marble,” interacting with the rays of light. The light from torches or silver lamps burns “ceaselessly,” and the root and walls respond to this perpetual light. Ruskin’s mention of the saints is particularly interesting. Protestantism decries a Catholic clutter of imagery, and bemoans what it deems an excessive glorification of the saints or of graven images. Here Ruskin both expresses his appreciation of the “glories round the heads of the sculptured saints,” and limits their power; they “flash” and then “sink again into the gloom." Their glory must be emphatically subsumed in the greater glory of the Cross. 

Such a Cross-centered outlook is more completely fulfilled in the following sentence: 

"Under foot and over head, a continual succession of crowded imagery, one picture passing into another, as in a dream; forms beautiful and terrible mixed together; dragons and serpents, and ravening beasts of prey, and graceful birds that in the midst of them drink from running fountains and feed from vases of crystal; the passions and the pleasures of human life symbolized together, and the mystery of its redemption; for the mazes of interwoven lines and changeful pictures lead always at last to the Cross, lifted and carved in every place and upon every stone; sometimes with the serpent of eternity wrapped round it, sometimes with doves beneath its arms, and sweet herbage growing forth from its feet; but conspicuous most of all on the great rood that crosses the church before the altar, raised in bright blazonry against the shadow of the apse."

This “continual succession of crowded imagery,” “the mazes of interwoven lines and changeful pictures” must “lead always at last to the Cross, lifted and carved in every place and upon every stone;” yet, having established this underlying qualification, Ruskin can passionately relate the emotion and power of what he sees. The pictures pass “as in a dream,” full of motion and magic. They are “beautiful and terrible,” “ravening,” “graceful,” full of “passions and pleasures of human life,” “and the mystery of its redemption." This passage, in fact, embodies an ecstatic meditation on “the mystery” of “redemption." The Cross is everywhere in the Church, and ever present to Ruskin. He concludes with the “great rood” before the “altar, raised in bright blazonry against the shadow of the apse." It is the consummate act of sacrifice that fascinates Ruskin, and he, as a priest, seemingly presides over that sacrifice, even as he stands back in profound awe in gazing upon the altar. 

Lest we be lost in this transcendent vision, so dependent upon Catholic imagery, Ruskin quickly lays down the rules of his Catholic aesthetic. He does not wish his reader or himself to be too far carried away “when the mist of the incense hangs heavily,” caught up in the thrill of the mystical religious experience. Protestantism eagerly indicts the Roman Church for her treatment of the Virgin Mary, calling it idolatry. Here Ruskin again relieves his Protestant anxieties and assures his reader that in this Church, and led by the tenets of the Ruskinized Catholic aesthetic, Mary is “not here the presiding deity." She may be represented “in the recesses of the aisles and chapels,” yet she stands “with her eyes raised to heaven,” not problematically gazing to earth. With much aplomb Ruskin informs his reader that it “is the Cross that is first seen, and always, burning in the centre of the temple; and every dome and hollow of its roof has the figure of Christ in the utmost height of it, raised in power, or returning in judgment." With such intense apocalyptic imagery, the description of St. Mark’s is concluded. 

Ruskin’s enthusiasm for Catholic art appears truly revolutionary when his Protestant heritage is taken into consideration and when his account of St. Mark’s is compared with other contemporary accounts of the Roman Church such as “The Blight of Popery,” published in The Bulwark or Reformation Journal in 1851: 

"When an enlightened traveler passes from the domains of Protestantism to those of the Romish Church, he immediately perceives that he has entered upon a strange territory, over which a base and gloomy genius seems to preside [….] A blight shrivels up the budding of intellectual vigour, a barren selfishness blasts the healthfulness of moral feeling, and dark suspicion lowers over every face and destroys the blithesome play of animating spirit. Signs of a degrading superstition force themselves upon the attention at every turn. Images of virgins and other tutelary saints appear to demand the homage of those who pass along the streets; whilst the churches and their gaudy shrines are decked with the costly gifts of servile worshippers [….] The spiritual senses are effectually blunted, and groveling images destroy the purity of worship, and humanize those affections which ought to be divine."

Here are the stereotypical Protestant complaints against the “Romish Church:” “strange,” “base,” “gloomy,” “barren,” “dauty,” and “servile,” full of “dark suspicion” and “degrading superstition." This bitter religious antagonism makes Ruskin’s justification seem rather tepid. John Ruskin’s religious standing embodies uncertainty, inconsistency, and frequent vacillation. At times, he descended into fierce bigotry, vilifying the Church of Rome in similar terms to the above quote. Not merely in spite of, but precisely because of this deeply conflicted religious identity, the prose of Ruskin seethes with Catholicism. Catholicism might be lovingly encompassed in the works of a Catholic writer, but here a peculiar effect is attained. The heart of the artist thrills at the sight of this art, and the soul cries out for expression, even while the British Protestant mind writhes. The Catholic aesthetic is the result.