THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
JOHN RUSKIN
VOLUME XXIII
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
VOLUMES I-II
[Illustration: ROOM AT BRANTWOOD
SHOWING PICTURES OF THE BOY RUSKIN AND HIS PARENTS
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
BEING
A COLLECTION OF
SCATTERED LETTERS
PUBLISHED CHIEFLY IN THE DAILY NEWSPAPERS
1840-1880
VOLUME I.
LETTERS ON ART AND SCIENCE
“I NEVER WROTE A LETTER IN MY LIFE WHICH ALL THE WORLD ARE NOT WELCOME
TO READ IF THEY WILL.”
_Fors Clavigera_, Letter 59, 1875.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
PAGE
AUTHOR’S PREFACE ix
EDITOR’S PREFACE xiii
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTERS IN VOLUME I xviii
LETTERS ON ART:
I. ART CRITICISM AND ART EDUCATION.
“Modern Painters;” a Reply. 1843 3
Art Criticism. 1843 10
The Arts as a Branch of Education. 1857 24
Art-Teaching by Correspondence. 1860 32
II. PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS AND THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
Danger to the National Gallery. 1847 37
The National Gallery. 1852 45
The British Museum. 1866 52
On the Purchase of Pictures. 1880 55
III. PRE-RAPHAELITISM.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren. 1851 (May 13) 59
The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren. 1851 (May 30) 63
“The Light of the World,” Holman Hunt. 1854 67
“The Awakening Conscience,” Holman Hunt. 1854 71
Pre-Raphaelitism in Liverpool. 1858 73
Generalization and the Scotch Pre-Raphaelites. 1858 74
IV. TURNER.
The Turner Bequest. 1856 81
[Turner’s Sketch Book. 1858 86, note]
The Turner Bequest and the National Gallery. 1857 86
The Turner Sketches and Drawings. 1858 88
[The Liber Studiorum. 1858 97, note]
The Turner Gallery at Kensington. 1859 98
Turner’s Drawings. 1876 (July 5) 100
Turner’s Drawings. 1876 (July 19) 104
Copies of Turner’s Drawings. 1876 105
[Copies of Turner’s Drawings--Extract. 1857 105, note]
[Copy of Turner’s Fluelen _ibid._]
“Turners,” False and True. 1871. 106
The Character of Turner. 1857. 107
[Thornbury’s Life of Turner. 1861. 108]
V. PICTURES AND ARTISTS.
John Leech’s Outlines. 1872. 111
Ernest George’s Etchings. 1873. 113
The Frederick Walker Exhibition. 1876. 116
VI. ARCHITECTURE AND RESTORATION.
Gothic Architecture and the Oxford Museum. 1858. 125
Gothic Architecture and the Oxford Museum. 1859. 131
The Castle Rock (Edinburgh). 1857 (Sept. 14) 145
Edinburgh Castle. 1857 (Sept. 27) 147
Castles and Kennels. 1871 (Dec. 22) 151
Verona _v._ Warwick. 1871 (Dec. 24) 152
Notre Dame de Paris. 1871 153
Mr. Ruskin’s Influence--A Defence. 1872 (March 15) 154
Mr. Ruskin’s Influence--A Rejoinder. 1872 (March 21) 156
Modern Restorations. 1877 157
Ribbesford Church. 1877 158
Circular relating to St. Mark’s, Venice. 1879. 159
[Letters relating to St. Mark’s, Venice. 1879. 169, note.]
LETTERS ON SCIENCE:
I. GEOLOGICAL.
The Conformation of the Alps, 1864 173
Concerning Glaciers. 1864. 175
English _versus_ Alpine Geology. 1864 181
Concerning Hydrostatics. 1864 185
James David Forbes: His Real Greatness. 1874. 187
II. MISCELLANEOUS.
On Reflections in Water. 1844 191
On the Reflection of Rainbows. 1861 201
A Landslip Near Giagnano. 1841 202
On the Gentian. 1857 204
On the Study of Natural History (undated) 204
AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
My good Editor insists that this book must have an Author’s Preface; and
insists further that it shall not contain compliments to him on the
editorship. I must leave, therefore, any readers who care for the book,
and comprehend the trouble that has been spent on it, to pay him their
own compliments, as the successive service of his notes may call for
them: but my obedience to his order, not in itself easy to me, doubles
the difficulty I have in doing what, nevertheless, I am resolved to
do--pay, that is to say, several extremely fine compliments to myself,
upon the quality of the text.
For of course I have read none of these letters since they were first
printed: of half of them I had forgotten the contents, of some, the
existence; all come fresh to me; and here in Rouen, where I thought
nothing could possibly have kept me from drawing all I could of the
remnants of the old town, I find myself, instead, lying in bed in the
morning, reading these remnants of my old self--and that with much
contentment and thankful applause.
For here are a series of letters ranging over a period of, broadly,
forty years of my life; most of them written hastily, and all in hours
snatched from heavier work: and in the entire mass of them there is not
a word I wish to change, not a statement I have to retract, and, I
believe, few pieces of advice, which the reader will not find it for his
good to act upon.
With which brief preface I am, for my own part, content; but as it is
one of an unusual tenor, and may be thought by some of my friends, and
all my foes, more candid than graceful, I permit myself the apologetic
egotism of enforcing one or two of the points in which I find these
letters so well worth--their author’s--reading.
In the building of a large book, there are always places where an
indulged diffuseness weakens the fancy, and prolonged strain subdues the
energy: when we have time to say all we wish, we usually wish to say
more than enough; and there are few subjects we can have the pride of
exhausting, without wearying the listener. But all these letters were
written with fully provoked zeal, under strict allowance of space and
time: they contain the choicest and most needful things I could within
narrow limits say, out of many contending to be said; expressed with
deliberate precision; and recommended by the best art I had in
illustration or emphasis. At the time of my life in which most of them
were composed, I was fonder of metaphor, and more fertile in simile,
than I am now; and I employed both with franker trust in the reader’s
intelligence. Carefully chosen, they are always a powerful means of
concentration; and I could then dismiss in six words, “thistledown
without seeds, and bubbles without color,” forms of art on which I
should now perhaps spend half a page of analytic vituperation; and
represent, with a pleasant accuracy which my best methods of outline and
exposition could now no more achieve, the entire system of modern
plutocratic policy, under the luckily remembered image of the Arabian
bridegroom, bewitched with his heels uppermost.
It is to be remembered also that many of the subjects handled can be
more conveniently treated controversially than directly; the answer to a
single question may be made clearer than a statement which endeavors to
anticipate many; and the crystalline vigor of a truth is often best seen
in the course of its serene collision with a trembling and dissolving
fallacy. But there is a deeper reason than any such accidental ones for
the quality of this book. Since the letters cost me, as aforesaid, much
trouble; since they interrupted me in pleasant work which was usually
liable to take harm by interruption; and since they were likely almost,
in the degree of their force, to be refused by the editors of the
adverse journals, I never was tempted into writing a word for the public
press, unless concerning matters which I had much at heart. And the
issue is, therefore, that the two following volumes contain very nearly
the indices of everything I have deeply cared for during the last forty
years; while not a few of their political notices relate to events of
more profound historical importance than any others that have occurred
during the period they cover; and it has not been an uneventful one.
Nor have the events been without gravity; the greater, because they have
all been inconclusive. Their true conclusions are perhaps nearer than
any of us apprehend; and the part I may be forced to take in them,
though I am old,--perhaps I should rather say, _because_ I am
old,--will, as far as I can either judge or resolve, be not merely
literary.
Whether I am spared to put into act anything here designed for my
country’s help, or am shielded by death from the sight of her remediless
sorrow, I have already done for her as much service as she has will to
receive, by laying before her facts vital to her existence, and
unalterable by her power, in words of which not one has been warped by
interest nor weakened by fear; and which are as pure from selfish
passion as if they were spoken already out of another world.
J. RUSKIN.
ROUEN, _St. Firmin’s Day, 1880_.
EDITOR’S PREFACE.
Some words are needed by way of a general note to the present volumes in
explanation of the principles upon which they have been edited. It is,
however, first due to the compiler of the Bibliography of Mr. Ruskin’s
writings,[1] to state in what measure this book has been prompted and
assisted by his previous labors. Already acquainted with some few of the
letters which Mr. Ruskin had addressed at various times to the different
organs of the daily press, or which had indirectly found their way
there, it was not until I came across the Bibliography that I was
encouraged to complete and arrange a collection of these scattered
portions of his thought. When I had done this, I ventured to submit the
whole number of the letters to their author, and to ask him if, after
taking two or three of them as examples of the rest, he would not
consider the advisability of himself republishing, if not all, at least
a selected few. In reply, he was good enough to put me in communication
with his publisher, and to request me to edit any or all of the letters
without further reference to him.
I have, therefore, to point out that except for that request, or rather
sanction; for the preface which he has promised to add after my work
upon the volumes is finished; and for the title which it bears, Mr.
Ruskin is in no way responsible for this edition of his letters. I knew,
indeed, from the words of “Fors Clavigera” which are printed as a motto
to the book, that I ran little risk of his disapproval in determining to
print, not a selection, but the whole number of letters in question; and
I felt certain that the completeness of the collection would be
considered a first essential by most of its readers, who are thus
assured that the present volumes contain, with but two exceptions, every
letter mentioned in the last edition of the bibliography, and some few
more beside, which have been either printed or discovered since its
publication.
The two exceptions are, first, the series of letters on the Lord’s
Prayer which appeared in the pages of the _Contemporary Review_ last
December; and, secondly, some half-dozen upon “A Museum or Picture
Gallery,” printed in the _Art Journal_ of last June and August. It
seemed that both these sets of letters were really more akin to review
articles cast in an epistolary form, and would thus find fitter place in
a collection of such papers than in the present volumes; and for the
omission of the second set there was a still further reason in the fact
that the series is not yet completed.[2] On the other hand, the recent
circular on the proposed interference with St. Mark’s, Venice, is
included in the first, and one or two other extraneous matters in the
second volume, for reasons which their connection with the letters
amongst which they are placed will make sufficiently clear.
The letters are reprinted word for word, and almost stop for stop, from
the newspapers and other pages in which they first appeared. To ensure
this accuracy was not an easy matter, and to it there are a few
intentional exceptions. A few misprints have been corrected, such as
that of “Fat Bard” for “Fort Bard” (vol. i. p. 147): and now and then
the punctuation has been changed, as on the 256th page of the same
volume, where a comma, placed in the original print of the letter
between the words “visibly” and “owing,” quite confused the sentence. To
these slight alterations may be added others still less important, such
as the commencement of a fresh paragraph, or the closing up of an
existing one, to suit the composition of the type, which the number of
notes rendered unusually tiresome. The title of a letter, too, is not
always that provided it by the newspaper; in some cases it seemed well
to rechristen, in others it was necessary to christen a letter, though
the former has never been done where it was at all possible that the
existing title (for which reference can always be made to the
bibliography) was one given to it by Mr. Ruskin himself.
The classification of the letters is well enough shown by the tables of
contents. The advantages of a topical over a chronological arrangement
appeared beyond all doubt; whilst the addition to each volume of a
chronological list of the letters contained in it, and the further
addition to the second volume of a similar list of all the letters
contained in the book, and of a full index, will, it is hoped, increase
the usefulness of the work.
The beautiful engraving which forms the frontispiece of the first
volume originally formed that of “The Oxford Museum.” The plate was but
little used in the apparently small edition of that book, and was thus
found to be in excellent state for further use here. The woodcut of the
chestnut spandril (vol. i. p. 144) is copied from one which may also be
found in “The Oxford Museum.” The facsimile of part of one of the
letters is not quite satisfactory, the lines being somewhat thicker than
they should be, but it answers its present purpose.
Lastly, the chief difficulty of editing these letters has been in regard
to the notes, and has lain not so much in obtaining the necessary
information as in deciding what use to make of it when obtained. The
first point was, of course, to put the reader of the present volumes in
possession of every fact which would have been common knowledge at the
time when such and such a letter was written; but beyond this there were
various allusions, which might be thought to need explanation;
quotations, the exact reference to which might be convenient; and so
forth. Some notes, therefore, of this character have been also added;
whilst some few which were omitted, either intentionally or by accident,
from the body of the work, may be found on reference to the index.[3]
The effort to make the book complete has induced the notice of slight
variations of text in one or two cases, especially in the reprint of the
St. Mark’s Circular. The space occupied by such notes is small, the
interest which a few students take in the facts they notice really
great, and the appearance of pedantry to some readers is thus risked in
order to meet the special wish of others. The same effort will account
for the reappearance of one or two really unimportant letters in the
Appendix to the second volume, which contains also some few letters the
nature of which is rather personal than public.
I have asked Mr. Ruskin to state in his preface to the book the value he
may set upon it in relation to his other and more connected work; and
for the rest, I have only to add that the editing of it has been the
pleasant labor of my leisure for more than two years past, and to
express my hope that these scattered arrows, some from the bow of “An
Oxford Graduate,” some from that of an Oxford Professor, may not have
been vainly winged anew by
AN OXFORD PUPIL.
_October, 1880._
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTERS CONTAINED IN THE FIRST VOLUME.
NOTE.--_In the second and third columns the bracketed words and
figures are dating of more or less certainly conjectured; whilst those
unbracketed give the actual the letter._
-------------------------------------------+----------------------
TITLE OF LETTER. | WHERE WRITTEN.
-------------------------------------------+----------------------
A LANDSLIP NEAR GIAGNANO | Naples
MODERN PAINTERS: A REPLY | [Denmark Hill
ART CRITICISM | [Denmark Hill
ON REFLECTIONS IN WATER | [Denmark Hill
DANGER TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY | [Denmark Hill]
THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN, I. | Denmark Hill
THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN, II. | Denmark Hill
THE NATIONAL GALLERY | Herne Hill, Dulwich
“THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD” | Denmark Hill
“THE AWAKENING CONSCIENCE” | [Denmark Hill
THE TURNER BEQUEST | Denmark Hill
ON THE GENTIAN | Denmark Hill
THE TURNER BEQUEST & NATIONAL GALLERY | [Denmark Hill
THE CASTLE ROCK (EDINBURGH) | Dunbar
THE ARTS AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION | Penrith
EDINBURGH CASTLE | Penrith
THE CHARACTER OF TURNER | [
PRE-RAPHAELITISM IN LIVERPOOL | [
GENERALIZATION & SCOTCH PRE-RAPHAELITES | [
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE & OXFORD MUSEUM, I. | [
THE TURNER SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS | [
TURNER’S SKETCH BOOK (EXTRACT) | [
THE LIBER STUDIORUM (EXTRACT) | [
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE & OXFORD MUSEUM, II. | [
THE TURNER GALLERY AT KENSINGTON | Denmark Hill
MR. THORNBURY’S “LIFE OF TURNER” (EXTRACT) | Lucerne
ART TEACHING BY CORRESPONDENCE | Denmark Hill
ON THE REFLECTION OF RAINBOWS | [ ]
THE CONFORMATION OF THE ALPS | Denmark Hill
CONCERNING GLACIERS | Denmark Hill
ENGLISH _versus_ ALPINE GEOLOGY | Denmark Hill
CONCERNING HYDROSTATICS | Norwich
THE BRITISH MUSEUM | Denmark Hill
COPIES OF TURNER’S DRAWINGS (EXTRACT) | [
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS | [Denmark Hill
“TURNERS” FALSE AND TRUE | Denmark Hill
CASTLES AND KENNELS | Denmark Hill
VERONA _v._ WARWICK | Denmark Hill, S. E.
MR. RUSKIN’S INFLUENCE: A DEFENCE | Denmark Hill
MR. RUSKIN’S INFLUENCE: A REJOINDER | Denmark Hill
JOHN LEECH’S OUTLINES | [
ERNEST GEORGE’S ETCHINGS | [Denmark Hill
JAMES DAVID FORBES: HIS REAL GREATNESS | [
THE FREDERICK WALKER EXHIBITION | [
COPIES OF TURNER’S DRAWINGS | Peterborough
TURNER’S DRAWINGS, I. | Brantwood
TURNER’S DRAWINGS, II. | Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire
MODERN RESTORATION | Venice
RIBBESFORD CHURCH | Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire
ST. MARK’S VENICE--CIRCULAR RELATING TO | [Brantwood
ST. MARK’S VENICE--LETTERS | [Brantwood
ON THE PURCHASE OF PICTURES | [Brantwood
COPY OF TURNER’S “FLUELEN” | London
THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY | [ ]
---------------------------+------------------------------------------+-----
WHEN WRITTEN. | WHERE AND WHEN FIRST PUBLISHED. |PAGE.
---------------------------+------------------------------------------+-----
February 7, 1841 | Proceedings of the Ashmolean Society | 202
About Sept. 17, 1843] | _The Weekly Chronicle_, Sept. 23, 1843 | 3
December, 1843] | _The Artist and Amateur’s Magazine_, 1844| 10
January, 1844] | _The Artist and Amateur’s Magazine_, 1844| 191
January 6 [1847] | _The Times_, January 7, 1847 | 37
May 9 [1851] | _The Times_, May 13, 1851 | 59
May 26 [1851] | _The Times_, May 30, 1851 | 63
December 27 [1852] | _The Times_, December 29, 1852 | 45
May 4 [1854] | _The Times_, May 15, 1854 | 67
May 24 [1854] | _The Times_, May 25, 1854 | 71
October 27 [1856] | _The Times_, October 28, 1856 | 81
February 10 [1857] | _The Athenæum_, February 14, 1857 | 204
July 8, 1857] | _The Times_, July 9, 1857 | 86
14th September, 1857 | _The Witness_ (Edinburgh), Sept. 16, 1857| 145
September 25, 1857 | “New Oxford Examinations, etc.,” 1858 | 24
27th September [1857] | _The Witness_ (Edinburgh), Sept. 30, 1857| 147
1857] | Thornbury’s Life of Turner. Preface, 1861| 107
January, 1858] | _The Liverpool Albion_, January 11, 1858 | 73
March. 1858] | _The Witness_ (Edinburgh), March 27, 1858| 74
June, 1858] | “The Oxford Museum,” 1859. | 125
November, 1858] | _The Literary Gazette_, Nov. 13, 1858 | 88
] 1858 | List of Turner’s Drawings, Boston, 1874 | 86 _n._
] 1858 | List of Turner’s Drawings, Boston, 1874 | 97 _n._
January 20, 1859 | “The Oxford Museum,” 1859 | 131
October 20 [1859] | _The Times_, October 21, 1859 | 98
December 2, 1861 | Thornbury’s Life of Turner. Ed. 2, Pref. | 108
November, 1860 | _Nature and Art_, December 1, 1866 | 32
7th May, 1861 | _The London Review_, May 16, 1861 | 201
10th November, 1864 | _The Reader_, November 12, 1864 | 173
November 21 [1864] | _The Reader_, November 26, 1864 | 175
29th November [1864] | _The Reader_, December 3, 1864 | 181
5th December [1864] | _The Reader_, December 10, 1864 | 185
Jan. 26 [1866] | _The Times_, January 27, 1866 | 52
] 1867 | List of Turner’s Drawings, Boston, 1874 | 105 _n._
January 18, 1871] | _The Daily Telegraph_, January 19, 1871 | 153
January 23 [1871] | _The Times_, January 24, 1871 | 106
December 20 [1871] | _The Daily Telegraph_, December 22, 1871 | 151
24th (for 25th) Dec. [1871]| _The Daily Telegraph_, December 25, 1871 | 152
March 15 [1872] | _The Pall Mall Gazette_, March 16, 1872 | 154
March 21 [1872] | _The Pall Mall Gazette_, March 21, 1872 | 156
1872] | The Catalogue to the Exhibition, 1872 | 111
December, 1873] | _The Architect_, December 27, 1873 | 113
1874] | “Rendu’s Glaciers of Savoy,” 1874 | 187
January, 1876] | _The Times_, January 20, 1876 | 116
April 23 [1876] | _The Times_, April 25, 1876 | 105
July 3 [1876] | _The Daily Telegraph_, July 5, 1876 | 100
July 16 [1876] | _The Daily Telegraph_, July 19, 1876 | 104
15th April, 1877 | _The Liverpool Daily Post_, June 9, 1877 | 157
July 24, 1877 | _The Kidderminster Times_, July 28, 1877 | 158
Winter 1879] | See the Circular | 159
Winter 1879] | _Birmingham Daily Mail_, Nov. 27, 1879 | 169
January 1880] | _Leicester Chronicle_, January 31, 1880 | 55
20th March, 1880 | Lithograph copy issued by Mr. Ward, 1880 | 105 _n._
Undated | Letter to Adam White [unknown] | 204
LETTERS ON ART.
I.
ART CRITICISM AND ART EDUCATION.
“MODERN PAINTERS”; A REPLY. 1843.
ART CRITICISM. 1843.
THE ARTS AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION. 1857.
ART TEACHING BY CORRESPONDENCE. 1860.
ARROWS OF THE CHACE.
I.
ART CRITICISM AND ART EDUCATION.
[From “The Weekly Chronicle,” September 23, 1843.]
_“MODERN PAINTERS;” A REPLY._
_To the Editor of “The Weekly Chronicle.”_
SIR: I was much gratified by reading in your columns of the 15th[4]
instant a piece of close, candid, and artistical criticism on my work
entitled “Modern Painters.” Serious and well-based criticism is at the
present day so rare, and our periodicals are filled so universally with
the splenetic jargon or meaningless praise of ignorance, that it is no
small pleasure to an author to meet either with praise which he can view
with patience, or censure which he can regard with respect. I seldom,
therefore, read, and have never for an instant thought of noticing, the
ordinary animadversions of the press; but the critique on “Modern
Painters” in your pages is evidently the work of a man both of knowledge
and feeling; and is at once so candid and so keen, so honest and so
subtle, that I am desirous of offering a few remarks on the points on
which it principally touches--they are of importance to art; and I feel
convinced that the writer is desirous only of elucidating truth, not of
upholding a favorite error. With respect first to Gaspar’s painting of
the “Sacrifice of Isaac.” It is not on the faith of any _single_ shadow
that I have pronounced the time intended to be near noon[5]--though the
shadow of the two figures being very short, and cast _from_ the
spectator, is in itself conclusive. The whole system of chiaroscuro of
the picture is lateral; and the light is expressly shown not to come
from the distance by its breaking brightly on the bit of rock and
waterfall on the left, from which the high copse wood altogether
intercepts the rays proceeding from the horizon. There are multitudes of
pictures by Gaspar with this same effect--leaving no doubt whatever on
my mind that they are all manufactured by the same approved recipe,
probably given him by Nicholas, but worked out by Gaspar with the
clumsiness and vulgarity which are invariably attendant on the efforts
of an inferior mind to realize the ideas of a greater. The Italian
masters universally make the horizon the chief light of their picture,
whether the effect intended be of noon or evening. Gaspar, to save
himself the trouble of graduation, washes his sky half blue and half
yellow, and separates the two colors by a line of cloud. In order to get
his light conspicuous and clear, he washes the rest of his sky of a dark
deep blue, without any thoughts about time of day or elevation of sun,
or any such minutiæ; finally, having frequently found the convenience of
a black foreground, with a bit of light coming in round the corner, and
probably having no conception of the possibility of painting a
foreground on any other principle, he naturally falls into the usual
method--blackens it all over, touches in a few rays of lateral light,
and turns out a very respectable article; for in such language only
should we express the completion of a picture painted throughout on
conventional principles, without one reference to nature, and without
one idea of the painter’s own. With respect to Salvator’s “Mercury and
the Woodman,”[6] your critic has not allowed for the effect of time on
its blues. They are now, indeed, sobered and brought down, as is every
other color in the picture, until it is scarcely possible to distinguish
any of the details in its darker parts; but they _have been_ pure and
clean, and the mountain is absolutely the same color as the open part of
the sky. When I say it is “in full light,” I do not mean that it is the
highest light of the picture (for no distant mountain _can_ be so, when
compared with bright earth or white clouds), but that no accidental
shadow is cast upon it; that it is under open sky, and so illumined that
there must necessarily be a difference in hue between its light and dark
sides, at which Salvator has not even hinted.
Again, with respect to the question of focal distances,[7] your critic,
in common with many very clever people to whom I have spoken on the
subject, has confused the obscurity of objects which are _laterally_ out
of the focal _range_, with that of objects which are _directly_ out of
the focal _distance_. If all objects in a landscape were in the same
plane, they should be represented on the plane of the canvas with equal
distinctness, because the eye has no greater lateral range on the canvas
than in the landscape, and can only command a point in each. But this
point in the landscape may present an intersection of lines belonging to
different distances--as when a branch of a tree, or tuft of grass, cuts
against the horizon: and yet these different distances cannot be
discerned together: we lose one if we look at the other, so that no
painful intersection of lines is ever felt. But on the canvas, as the
lines of foreground and of distance are on the _same_ plane, they _will_
be seen together whenever they intersect, painfully and distinctly; and,
therefore, unless we make one series, whether near or distant, obscure
and indefinite, we shall always represent as visible at once that which
the eye can only perceive by two separate acts of seeing. Hold up your
finger before this page, six inches from it. If you look at the edge of
your finger, you cannot see the letters; if you look at the letters, you
cannot see the edge of your finger, but as a confused, double, misty
line. Hence in painting, you must either take for your subject the
finger or the letters; you cannot paint both distinctly without
violation of truth. It is of no consequence how quick the change of the
eye may be; it is not one whit quicker than its change from one part of
the horizon to another, nor are the two intersecting distances more
visible at the same time than two opposite portions of a landscape to
which it passes in succession. Whenever, therefore, in a landscape, we
look from the foreground to the distance, the foreground is subjected to
_two_ degrees of indistinctness: the first, that of an object
_laterally_ out of the focus of the eye; and the _second_, that of an
object _directly_ out of the focus of the eye; being too near to be seen
with the focus adapted to the distance. In the picture, when we look
from the foreground to the distance, the foreground is subjected only to
_one_ degree of indistinctness, that of being out of the lateral range;
for as both the painting of the distance and of the foreground are on
the same plane, they are seen together with the same focus. Hence we
must supply the _second_ degree of indistinctness by slurring with the
brush, or we shall have a severe and painful intersection of near and
distant lines, impossible in nature. Finally, a very false principle is
implied by part of what is advanced by your critic--which has led to
infinite error in art, and should therefore be instantly combated
whenever it were hinted--that the ideal is different from the true. It
is, on the contrary, only the perfection of truth. The Apollo is not a
_false_ representation of man, but the most perfect representation of
all that is constant and essential in man--free from the accidents and
evils which corrupt the truth of his nature.[8] Supposing we are
describing to a naturalist some animal he does not know, and we tell him
we saw one with a hump on its back, and another with strange bends in
its legs, and another with a long tail, and another with no tail, he
will ask us directly, But what is its _true_ form, what is its _real_
form? This truth, this reality, which he requires of us, is the _ideal_
form, that which is hinted at by all the individuals--aimed at, but not
arrived at. But never let it be said that, when a painter is defying the
principles of nature at every roll of his brush, as I have shown that
Gaspar does, when, instead of working out the essential characters of
specific form, and raising those to their highest degree of nobility and
beauty, he is casting all character aside, and carrying out imperfection
and accident; never let it be said, in excuse for such degradation of
nature, that it is done in pursuit of the ideal. As well might this be
said in defence of the promising sketch of the human form pasted on the
wainscot behind the hope of the family--artist and musician of equal
power--in the “Blind Fiddler.”[9] Ideal beauty is the generalization of
consummate knowledge, the concentration of perfect truth--not the
abortive vision of ignorance in its study. Nor was there ever yet one
conception of the human mind beautiful, but as it was based on truth.
Whenever we leave nature, we fall immeasurably beneath her. So, again,
I find fault with the “ropy wreath” of Gaspar,[10] not because he chose
massy cloud instead of light cloud; but because he has drawn his massy
cloud _falsely_, making it look tough and powerless, like a chain of
Bologna sausages, instead of gifting it with the frangible and elastic
vastness of nature’s mountain vapor.
Finally, Sir, why must it be only “when he is gone from us”[11] that the
power of our greatest English landscape painter is to be acknowledged?
It cannot, indeed, be fully understood until the current of years has
swept away the minor lights which stand around it, and left it burning
alone; but at least the scoff and the sneer might be lashed into
silence, if those only did their duty by whom it is already perceived.
And let us not think that our unworthiness has no effect on the work of
the master. I could be patient if I thought that _no_ effect was wrought
on his noble mind by the cry of the populace; but, scorn it as he may,
and does, it is yet impossible for any human mind to hold on its course,
with the same energy and life, through the oppression of a perpetual
hissing, as when it is cheered on by the quick sympathy of its
fellow-men. It is not in art as in matters of political duty, where the
path is clear and the end visible. The springs of feeling may be
oppressed or sealed by the want of an answer in other bosoms, though the
sense of principle cannot be blunted except by the individual’s _own_
error; and though the knowledge of what is right, and the love of what
is beautiful, may still support our great painter through the languor of
age--and Heaven grant it may for years to come--yet we cannot hope that
he will ever cast his spirit upon the canvas with the same freedom and
fire as if he felt that the voice of its inspiration was waited for
among men, and dwelt upon with devotion. Once, in ruder times, the work
of a great painter[12] was waited for through days at his door, and
attended to its place of deposition by the enthusiasm of a hundred
cities; and painting rose from that time, a rainbow upon the Seven
Hills, and on the cypressed heights of Fiésole, guiding them and
lighting them forever, even in the stillness of their decay. How can we
hope that England will ever win for herself such a crown, while the
works of her highest intellects are set for the pointing of the finger
and the sarcasm of the tongue, and the sole reward for the deep,
earnest, holy labor of a devoted life, is the weight of stone upon the
trampled grave, where the vain and idle crowd will come to wonder how
the brushes are mimicked in the marble above the dust of him who wielded
them in vain?
I have the honor to be, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
THE AUTHOR OF “MODERN PAINTERS.”
[From the “Artist and Amateur’s Magazine” (edited by E. V. Rippingille), January,
1843, pp. 280-287.]
_ART CRITICISM._
_To the Editor of the “Artist and Amateur’s Magazine.”_
SIR--Anticipating, with much interest, your reply to the candid and
earnest inquiries of your unknown correspondent, Matilda Y.,[13] I am
led to hope that you will allow me to have some share with you in the
pleasant task of confirming an honest mind in the truth. Subject always
to your animadversion and correction, so far as I may seem to you to be
led astray by my peculiar love for the works of the artist to whom her
letter refers, I yet trust that in most of the remarks I have to make on
the points which have perplexed her, I shall be expressing not only your
own opinions, but those of every other accomplished artist who is really
acquainted--and which of our English masters is not?--with the noble
system of poetry and philosophy which has been put forth on canvas,
during the last forty years, by the great painter who has presented us
with the almost unparalleled example of a man winning for himself the
unanimous plaudits of his generation and time, and then casting them
away like dust, that he may build his monument--ære perennius.
Your correspondent herself, in saying that mere knowledge of _pictures_
cannot qualify a man for the office of a critic, has touched the first
source of the schisms of the present, and of all time, in questions of
pictorial merit. We are overwhelmed with a tribe of critics who are
fully imbued with every kind of knowledge which is useful to the
picture-dealer, but with none that is important to the artist. They know
where a picture _has_ been retouched, but not where it _ought_ to have
been; they know if it has been injured, but not if the injury is to be
regretted. They are unquestionable authorities in all matters relating
to the panel or the canvas, to the varnish or the vehicle, while they
remain in entire ignorance of that which the vehicle conveys. They are
well acquainted with the technical qualities of every master’s touch;
and when their discrimination fails, plume themselves on indisputable
tradition, and point triumphantly to the documents of pictorial
genealogy. But they never go _quite_ far enough back; they stop _one_
step short of the real original; they reach the human one, but never the
Divine. Whatever, under the present system of study, the connoisseur of
the gallery may learn or know, there is one thing he does _not_
know--and that is nature. It is a pitiable thing to hear a man like Dr.
Waagen,[14] about to set the seal of his approbation, or the brand of
his reprobation, on all the pictures in our island, expressing his
insipid astonishment on his first acquaintance with the sea. “For the
_first_ time I understood the truth of their pictures (Backhuysen’s and
Van de Velde’s), and the refined art with which, by intervening dashes
of sunshine, near or at a distance, and _ships to animate the scene_,
they produce such a charming variety on the surface of the sea.” For the
first time!--and yet this gallery-bred judge, this discriminator of
colored shreds and canvas patches, who has no idea how ships animate the
sea, until--charged with the fates of the Royal Academy--he ventures his
invaluable person from Rotterdam to Greenwich, will walk up to the work
of a man whose brow is hard with the spray of a hundred storms, and
characterize it as “wanting in truth of clouds and waves”! Alas for Art,
while such judges sit enthroned on their apathy to the beautiful, and
their ignorance of the true, and with a canopy of canvas between them
and the sky, and a wall of tradition, which may not be broken through,
concealing from them the horizon, hurl their darkened verdicts against
the works of men, whose night and noon have been wet with the dew of
heaven--dwelling on the deep sea, or wandering among the solitary places
of the earth, until they have “made the mountains, waves, and skies a
part of them and of their souls.”
When information so narrow is yet the whole stock in trade of the
highest authorities of the day, what are we to expect from the lowest?
Dr. Waagen is a most favorable specimen of the tribe of critics; a man,
we may suppose, impartial, above all national or party prejudice, and
intimately acquainted with that half of his subject (the technical half)
which is all we can reasonably expect to be known by one who has been
trained in the painting-room instead of in the fields. No authority is
more incontrovertible in all questions of the genuineness of old
pictures. He has at least the merit--not common among those who talk
most of the old masters--of knowing what he _does_ admire, and will not
fall into the same raptures before an execrable copy as before the
original. If, then, we find a man of this real judgment in those matters
to which his attention has been directed, entirely incapable, owing to
his ignorance of nature, of estimating a modern picture, what can we
hope from those lower critics who are unacquainted even with those
technical characters which they have opportunities of learning? What,
for instance, are we to anticipate from the sapient lucubrations of the
critic--for some years back the disgrace of the pages of
“Blackwood”--who in one breath displays his knowledge of nature, by
styling a painting of a furze bush in the bed of a mountain torrent a
specimen of the “high pastoral,” and in the next his knowledge of Art,
by informing us that Mr. Lee “reminds him of Gainsborough’s best manner,
but is inferior to him in composition”![15] We do not mean to say
anything against Mr. Lee; but can we forbear to smile at the hopeless
innocence of the man’s novitiate, who could be reminded by them of
landscapes powerful enough in color to take their place beside those of
Rembrandt or Rubens? A little attention will soon convince your
correspondent of the utter futility or falsehood of the ordinary
critiques of the press; and there could, I believe, even at present, be
little doubt in her mind as to the fitting answer to the question,
whether we are to take the opinion of the accomplished artist or of the
common newsmonger, were it not for a misgiving which, be she conscious
of it or not, is probably floating in her mind--whether that can really
be _great_ Art which has no influence whatsoever on the multitude, and
is appreciable only by the initiated few. And this is the real question
of difficulty. It is easy to prove that such and such a critic is wrong;
but not so, to prove that what everybody dislikes is right. It is
fitting to pay respect to Sir Augustus Callcott, but is it so to take
his word against all the world?
This inquiry requires to be followed with peculiar caution; for by
setting at defiance the judgment of the public, we in some sort may
appear to justify that host of petty scribblers, and contemptible
painters, who in all time have used the same plea in defence of their
rejected works, and have received in consequence merciless chastisement
from contemporary and powerful authors or painters, whose reputation was
as universal as it was just. “Mes ouvrages,” said Rubens to his
challenger, Abraham Janssens, “ont été exposés en Italie, et en Espagne,
sans que j’aie reçu la nouvelle de leur condamnation. Vous n’avez qu’à
soumettre les votres à la même épreuve.”[16] “Je défie,” says Boileau,
“tous les amateurs les plus mécontents du public, de me citer un bon
livre que le public ait jamais rebuté, à moins qu’ils ne mettent en ce
rang leur écrits, de la bonté desquels eux seuls sont persuadés.”
Now the fact is, that the whole difficulty of the question is caused by
the ambiguity of this word--the “public.” Whom does it include? People
continually forget that there is a _separate_ public for every picture,
and for every book. Appealed to with reference to any particular work,
the public is that class of persons who possess the knowledge which it
presupposes, and the faculties to which it is addressed. With reference
to a new edition of Newton’s Principia, the “public” means little more
than the Royal Society. With reference to one of Wordsworth’s poems, it
means all who have hearts. With reference to one of Moore’s, all who
have passions. With reference to the works of Hogarth, it means those
who have worldly knowledge to the works of Giotto, those who have
religious faith. Each work must be tested exclusively by the fiat of
the _particular_ public to whom it is addressed. We will listen to no
comments on Newton from people who have no mathematical knowledge; to
none on Wordsworth from those who have no hearts; to none on Giotto from
those who have no religion. Therefore, when we have to form a judgment
of any new work, the question “What do the public say to it?” is indeed
of vital importance; but we must always inquire, first, who are _its_
public? We must not submit a treatise on moral philosophy to a conclave
of horse-jockeys, nor a work of deep artistical research to the writers
for the Art Union.
The public, then, we repeat, when referred to with respect to a
particular work, consist only of those who have knowledge of its
subject, and are possessed of the faculties to which it is addressed.
If it fail of touching _these_, the work is a bad one; but it in no
degree militates against it that it is rejected by those to whom it does
not appeal. To whom, then, let us ask, and to _what_ public do the works
of Turner appeal? To those only, we reply, who have profound and
disciplined acquaintance with nature, ardent poetical feeling, and keen
eye for color (a faculty far more rare than an ear for music). They are
deeply-toned poems, intended for all who love poetry, but not for those
who delight in mimickries of wine-glasses and nutshells. They are deep
treatises on natural phenomena, intended for all who are acquainted with
such phenomena, but not for those who, like the painter Barry, are
amazed at finding the realities of the Alps grander than the
imaginations of Salvator, and assert that they saw the moon from the
Mont Cenis four times as big as usual, “from being so much nearer to
it”![17] And they are studied melodies of exquisite color, intended for
those who have perception of color; not for those who fancy that all
trees are Prussian green. Then comes the question, Were the works of
Turner _ever_ rejected by any person possessing even partially these
qualifications? We answer boldly, never. On the contrary, they are
universally hailed by _this_ public with an enthusiasm not undeserving
in appearance--at least to those who are debarred from sharing in it, of
its usual soubriquet--the Turner mania.
Is, then, the number of those who are acquainted with the truth of
nature so limited? So it has been asserted by one who knew much both of
Art and Nature, and both were glorious in his country.[19]
"ΙΙΙ. Οὐ μέντοι εἰώθασιν ἄνθρωποι ὀνομάζειν οὔτως
ΣΩ. Πότερον, ὦ Ἱππία, οἱ εἰδότες ἢ οἱ μὴ εἰδότες;
ΙΠ. Οἱ πολλοί.
ΣΩ. Εἰσὶ δ᾿ οὗτοι οἱ εἰδότες τἀληθές, οἱ πολλοί;
ΙΠ. Οὐ δῆτα.
HIPPIAS MAJOR.
Now, we are not inclined to go quite so far as this. There are many
subjects with respect to which the multitude _are_ cognizant of truth,
or at least of _some_ truth; and those subjects may be generally
characterized as everything which materially concerns themselves or
their interests. The public are acquainted with the nature of their own
passions, and the point of their own calamities--can laugh at the
weakness they feel, and weep at the miseries they have experienced; but
all the sagacity they possess, be it how great soever, will not enable
them to judge of likeness to that which they have never seen, nor to
acknowledge principles on which they have never reflected. Of a comedy
or a drama, an epigram or a ballad, they are judges from whom there is
no appeal; but not of the representation of facts which they have never
examined, of beauties which they have never loved. It is not sufficient
that the facts or the features of nature be around us, while they are
not within us. We may walk day by day through grove and meadow, and
scarcely know more concerning them than is known by bird and beast, that
the one has shade for the head, and the other softness for the foot. It
is not true that “the eye, it cannot choose but see,” unless we obey the
following condition, and go forth “in a wise passiveness,”[21] free from
that plague of our own hearts which brings the shadow of ourselves, and
the tumult of our petty interests and impatient passions, across the
light and calm of Nature. We do not sit at the feet of our mistress to
listen to her teaching; but we seek her only to drag from her that which
may suit our purpose, to see in her the confirmation of a theory, or
find in her fuel for our pride. Nay, do we often go to her even thus?
Have we not rather cause to take to ourselves the full weight of
Wordsworth’s noble appeal--
“Vain pleasures of luxurious life!
Forever with yourselves at strife,
Through town and country, both deranged
By affections interchanged,
And all the perishable gauds
That heaven-deserted man applauds.
When will your hapless patrons learn
To watch and ponder, to discern
The freshness, the eternal youth
Of admiration, sprung from truth,
From beauty infinitely growing
Upon a mind with love overflowing:
To sound the depths of every art
That seeks its wisdom through the heart?”[22]
When _will_ they learn it? Hardly, we fear, in this age of steam and
iron, luxury and selfishness. We grow more and more artificial day by
day, and see less and less worthiness in those pleasures which bring
with them no morbid excitement, in that knowledge which affords us no
opportunity of display. Your correspondent may rest assured that those
who do not _care_ for nature, who do not love her, _cannot_ see her. A
few of her phenomena lie on the surface; the nobler number lie deep, and
are the reward of watching and of thought. The artist may choose _which_
he will render: no human art can render both. If he paint the surface,
he will catch the crowd; if he paint the depth, he will be admired
only--but with how deep and fervent admiration, none but they who feel
it can tell--by the thoughtful and observant few.