John Ruskin's Modern Painters

John Ruskin's Modern Painters
"…for [the painter's] selection of the brawls of peasants or sports of children can, of course, proceed only from the fact that he has more sympathy with such brawls of pastimes than with nobler subjects."

In his integrative essay Modern Painters, John Ruskin explains several points regarding high art, and on what makes certain art truly great. In brief, great art amounts to the use of a well-regarded subject (real or fictitious), beauty in consistence with truth, and utilizes the power of invention or imagination. He regards the so-called Pre-Raphaelites of the Victorian world, those who attempted to return to Renaissance-style art like the old Pre-Raphaelites, as those who have attained the "perfect unison of expression." Therefore, one can assume a bias toward the style of painting found on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
I think he is embracing the past too much. Yes, those works depicting Christian harmony are triumphant and have provoked piety as well as zeal for centuries, but he has encapsulated the concept of great art within a tiny prism. For the industrializing era, realism can amount to a completely new range of expression. For example, while Ruskin was writing this manifesto, Ilya Repin of Russia was becoming an esteemed portrait and realist-styled artist - and he turned Ruskin's quote regarding "lower orders of painting" and "noble subjects" on its head. Repin painted Tsar Nicholas II, Ivan the Terrible, and Leo Tolstoy - all who could be considered noble subjects - but they were captured in different ways. Tolsoy, simplistically; Nicholas, gallantly, and Ivan, brutally. Repin also painted peasants, famous Volga barge haulers, and a fantasy piece, Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom. This is why Ruskin's statement on how an artist must choose a proper subject is petty and pointless. It is not who or what the artist captures, but the way in which they are captured that determines whether it may be high art or not. The rest of Ruskin's points are rather one-sided or obvious. An artist on his or her path does not need Ruskin's help in understanding what makes a Rembrandt or a Durer fantastic. Thank goodness for Emilio Marinetti and his Futurist Manifesto¸ tossing aside this pedantic nonsense.