The Five Aims

Ruskin noted that the aims and ideas of artists fall into five categories: Power, Imitation, Truth, Beauty, and Relation. Each of these can be considered either as a stepping-stone to the next level or an actual destination in itself. Knowledge of these aims can aid artists in bringing clarity to their intent. It is somewhat misleading to summarize them so briefly, but these are the basics:

• POWER: Ruskin uses the word Power in reference to the artist's technical power and his expenditure of time and exertion producing the work. Included is elaborate ornament, decoration, and works with a high degree of finish.
• IMITATION: In the category of Imitation, he refers to an art that is illusion, which delights us in the deception that it looks real. For example, the appearance of projection-- where the eye says it is round, but the finger says it is flat
• TRUTH: There are two kinds of artistic Truth: 1) the truthful representation of emotion, impression and thoughts, and 2) the truthful representation of material things. These are called respectively "Moral" and "Material" truths. Ruskin asserts truth of thought and impression is by far the more important of the two.
• BEAUTY: Simple Beauty is a sensation of perfection that bypasses the intellect, in the same way that we receive sensual pleasure from the scent of a rose. Ruskin separates simple Beauty from Ideal Beauty, which he calls Relation.
• RELATION: The artistic idea of Relation goes a step beyond Truth, Beauty, Power and Imitation and into a realm that requires the intellect to come into play. This is an art that produces expression, sentiment and character.