ABSTRACT
The author's argument is that Ruskin possessed not simply a bag of rhetorical tricks, but a substantive rhetorical program. The very specific, even elaborate psychology of address of this program shaped his aesthetic politics, and, therefore, stipulated the nature of Florentine achievement. Ruskin’s stock, of course, has suffered a serious decline in the twentieth century; part of the general dissatisfaction of the thinking classes was his highly charged presentation of his own ethos. Proper pathos, in short, is an attribute of ethos; the picture and the reception of the picture demand sincerity. The primary flaw of the ethos of the artist or viewer is idolatry, the interposition of a false response, a distortion between the object and the creator/viewer. Putting aside the Protestant prudery, admitted by Ruskin himself, the authors should note well that he usually addresses a collectivity, a community of either viewers or producers.
