collection arranged in chronological and ethnological order, let
apartments be designed for each group large enough to admit of the
increase of the existing collection to any probable amount. The whole
gallery would thus become of great length, but might be adapted to any
form of ground-plan by disposing the whole in a labyrinthine chain,
returning upon itself. Its chronological arrangement would necessitate
its being continuous, rather than divided into many branches or
sections. Being lighted from above, it must be all on the same floor,
but ought at least to be raised one story above the ground, and might
admit any number of keepers’ apartments, or of schools, beneath; though
it would be better to make it quite independent of these, in order to
diminish the risk of fire. Its walls ought on every side to be
surrounded by corridors, so that the interior temperature might be kept
equal, and no outer surface of wall on which pictures were hung exposed
to the weather. Every picture should be glazed, and the horizon which
the painter had given to it placed on a level with the eye.
Lastly, opposite each picture should be a table, containing, under
glass, every engraving that had ever been made from it, and any studies
for it, by the master’s own hand, that remained, or were obtainable. The
values of the study and of the picture are reciprocally increased--of
the former more than doubled--by their being seen together; and if this
system were once adopted, the keepers of the various galleries of Europe
would doubtless consent to such exchanges of the sketches in their
possession as would render all their collections more interesting.
I trust, Sir, that the importance of this subject will excuse the extent
of my trespass upon your columns, and that the simplicity and
self-evident desirableness of the arrangement I have described may
vindicate my proposal of it from the charge of presumption.
I have the honor to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
THE AUTHOR OF “MODERN PAINTERS.”
HERNE HILL, DULWICH, _Dec. 27._
[From “The Times,” January 27, 1866.]
_THE BRITISH MUSEUM._
_To the Editor of “The Times.”_
SIR: As I see in your impression of yesterday that my name was
introduced in support of some remarks made, at the meeting of the
Society of Arts, on the management of the British Museum,[61] and as the
tendency of the remarks I refer to was depreciatory of the efforts and
aims of several officers of the Museum--more especially of the work done
on the collection of minerals by my friend Mr. Nevil S.
Maskelyne[62]--you will, I hope, permit me, not having been present at
the meeting, to express my feeling on the subject briefly in your
columns.
There is a confused notion in the existing public mind that the British
Museum was partly a parish school, partly a circulating library, and
partly a place for Christmas entertainments.
It is none of the three, and, I hope, will never be made any of the
three. But especially and most distinctly it is not a “preparatory
school,” nor even an “academy for young gentlemen,” nor even a
“working-men’s college.” A national museum is one thing, a national
place of education another; and the more sternly and unequivocally they
are separated, the better will each perform its office--the one of
treasuring and the other of teaching. I heartily wish that there were
already, as one day there must be, large educational museums in every
district of London, freely open every day, and well lighted and warmed
at night, with all furniture of comfort, and full aids for the use of
their contents by all classes. But you might just as rationally send the
British public to the Tower to study mineralogy upon the Crown jewels as
make the unique pieces of a worthy national collection (such as, owing
mainly to the exertions of its maligned officers, that of our British
Museum has recently become) the means of elementary public instruction.
After men have learnt their science or their art, at least so far as to
know a common and a rare example in either, a national museum is useful,
and ought to be easily accessible to them; but until then, unique or
selected specimens in natural history are without interest to them, and
the best art is as useless as a blank wall. For all those who can use
the existing national collection to any purpose, the Catalogue as it now
stands is amply sufficient: it would be difficult to conceive a more
serviceable one. But the rapidly progressive state of (especially
mineralogical) science, renders it impossible for the Curators to make
their arrangements in all points satisfactory, or for long periods
permanent. It is just because Mr. Maskelyne is doing more active,
continual, and careful work than, as far as I know, is at present done
in any national museum in Europe--because he is completing gaps in the
present series by the intercalation of carefully sought specimens, and
accurately reforming its classification by recently corrected
analyses--that the collection cannot yet fall into the formal and placid
order in which an indolent Curator would speedily arrange and willingly
leave it.
I am glad that Lord H. Lennox referred to the passage in my report on
the Turner Collection in which I recommended that certain portions of
that great series should be distributed, for permanence, among our
leading provincial towns.[63] But I had rather see the whole Turner
Collection buried, not merely in the cellars of the National Gallery,
but with Prospero’s staff fathoms in the earth, than that it should be
the means of inaugurating the fatal custom of carrying great works of
art about the roads for a show. If you _must_ make them educational to
the public, hang Titian’s Bacchus up for a vintner’s sign, and give
Henry VI.’s Psalter[64] for a spelling-book to the Bluecoat School;
but, at least, hang the one from a permanent post, and chain the other
to the boys’ desks, and do not send them about in caravans to every
annual Bartholomew Fair.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Jan. 26._
[From “The Leicester Chronicle and Mercury,” January 31, and reprinted in “The
Times,” February 2, 1880.]
_ON THE PURCHASE OF PICTURES._
DEAR SIR: Your letter is deeply interesting to me, but what use is there
in my telling you what to do? The mob won’t let you do it. It is fatally
true that no one nowadays can appreciate pictures by the Old Masters!
and that every one can understand Frith’s “Derby Day”--that is to say,
everybody is interested in jockeys, harlots, mountebanks, and men about
town; but nobody in saints, heroes, kings, or wise men--either from the
east or west. What can you do? If your Committee is strong enough to
carry such a resolution as the appointment of any _singly_ responsible
person, any well-informed gentleman of taste in your neighborhood, to
buy for the Leicester public just what he would buy for himself--that is
to say, himself _and his family_--children being the really most
important of the untaught public--and to answer simply to all
accusation--that is, a good and worthy piece of art (past or present, no
matter which)--make the most and best you can of it. That method so long
as tenable will be useful. I know of no other.
Faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.[65]
LETTERS ON ART.
III.
PRE-RAPHAELITISM.
THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN. 1851 (May 9).
THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN. 1851 (May 26).
“THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD,” HOLMAN HUNT. 1854.
“THE AWAKENING CONSCIENCE,” HOLMAN HUNT. 1854.
PRE-RAPHAELITISM IN LIVERPOOL. 1858.
GENERALIZATION AND THE SCOTCH PRE-RAPHAELITES. 1858.
III.
PRE-RAPHAELITISM.
[From “The Times,” May 13, 1851.]
_THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN._
_To the Editor of “The Times.”_
SIR: Your usual liberality will, I trust, give a place in your columns
to this expression of my regret that the tone of the critique which
appeared in _The Times_ of Wednesday last on the works of Mr. Millais
and Mr. Hunt, now in the Royal Academy, should have been scornful as
well as severe.[66]
I regret it, first, because the mere labor bestowed on those works, and
their fidelity to a certain order of truth (labor and fidelity which are
altogether indisputable), ought at once to have placed them above the
level of mere contempt; and, secondly, because I believe these young
artists to be at a most critical period of their career--at a
turning-point, from which they may either sink into nothingness or rise
to very real greatness; and I believe also, that whether they choose the
upward or the downward path, may in no small degree depend upon the
character of the criticism which their works have to sustain. I do not
wish in any way to dispute or invalidate the general truth of your
critique on the Royal Academy; nor am I surprised at the estimate which
the writer formed of the pictures in question when rapidly compared with
works of totally different style and aim; nay, when I first saw the
chief picture by Millais in the Exhibition of last year,[67] I had
nearly come to the same conclusion myself. But I ask your permission, in
justice to artists who have at least given much time and toil to their
pictures, to institute some more serious inquiry into their merits and
faults than your general notice of the Academy could possibly have
admitted.
Let me state, in the first place, that I have no acquaintance with any
of these artists, and very imperfect sympathy with them. No one who has
met with any of my writings will suspect me of desiring to encourage
them in their Romanist and Tractarian tendencies.[68] I am glad to see
that Mr. Millais’ lady in blue[69] is heartily tired of her painted
window and idolatrous toilet table; and I have no particular respect
for Mr. Collins’ lady in white, because her sympathies are limited by a
dead wall, or divided between some gold fish and a tadpole--(the latter
Mr. Collins may, perhaps, permit me to suggest _en passant_, as he is
already half a frog, is rather too small for his age). But I happen to
have a special acquaintance with the water plant, _Alisma Plantago_,
among which the said gold fish are swimming; and as I never saw it so
thoroughly or so well drawn, I must take leave to remonstrate with you,
when you say sweepingly that these men “sacrifice _truth_ as well as
feeling to eccentricity.” For as a mere botanical study of the
water-lily and _Alisma_, as well as of the common lily and several other
garden flowers, this picture would be invaluable to me, and I heartily
wish it were mine.
But, before entering into such particulars, let me correct an impression
which your article is likely to induce in most minds, and which is
altogether false. These pre-Raphaelites (I cannot compliment them on
common-sense in choice of a _nom de guerre_) do _not_ desire nor pretend
in any way to imitate antique painting as such. They know very little of
ancient paintings who suppose the works of these young artists to
resemble them.[70] As far as I can judge of their aim--for, as I said,
I do not know the men themselves--the pre-Raphaelites intend to
surrender no advantage which the knowledge or inventions of the present
time can afford to their art. They intend to return to early days in
this one point only--that, as far as in them lies, they will draw either
what they see, or what they suppose might have been the actual facts of
the scene they desire to represent, irrespective of any conventional
rules of picture-making; and they have chosen their unfortunate though
not inaccurate name because all artists did this before Raphael’s time,
and after Raphael’s time did _not_ this, but sought to paint fair
pictures, rather than represent stern facts; of which the consequence
has been that, from Raphael’s time to this day, historical art has been
in acknowledged decadence.
Now, sir, presupposing that the intention of these men was to return to
archaic _art_ instead of to archaic _honesty_, your critic borrows
Fuseli’s expression respecting ancient draperies “snapped instead of
folded,” and asserts that in these pictures there is a “_servile_
imitation of _false_ perspective.” To which I have just this to answer:
That there is not one single error in perspective in four out of the
five pictures in question; and that in Millais’ “Mariana” there is but
this one--that the top of the green curtain in the distant window has
too low a vanishing-point; and that I will undertake, if need be, to
point out and prove a dozen worse errors in perspective in any twelve
pictures, containing architecture, taken at random from among the works
of the popular painters of the day.
Secondly: that, putting aside the small Mulready, and the works of
Thorburn and Sir W. Ross, and perhaps some others of those in the
miniature room which I have not examined, there is not a single study of
drapery in the whole Academy, be it in large works or small, which for
perfect truth, power, and finish could be compared for an instant with
the black sleeve of the Julia, or with the velvet on the breast and the
chain mail of the Valentine, of Mr. Hunt’s picture; or with the white
draperies on the table of Mr. Millais’ “Mariana,” and of the right-hand
figure in the same painter’s “Dove returning to the Ark.”
And further: that as studies both of drapery and of every minor detail,
there has been nothing in art so earnest or so complete as these
pictures since the days of Albert Dürer. This I assert generally and
fearlessly. On the other hand, I am perfectly ready to admit that Mr.
Hunt’s “Silvia” is not a person whom Proteus or any one else would have
been likely to fall in love with at first sight; and that one cannot
feel very sincere delight that Mr. Millais’ “Wives of the Sons of Noah”
should have escaped the Deluge; with many other faults besides, on which
I will not enlarge at present, because I have already occupied too much
of your valuable space, and I hope to enter into more special criticism
in a future letter.
I have the honor to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
THE AUTHOR OF “MODERN PAINTERS.”
DENMARK HILL, _May_ 9.
[From “The Times,” May 30, 1851.]
_THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN._
_To the Editor of “The Times.”_
SIR: Your obliging insertion of my former letter encourages me to
trouble you with one or two further notes respecting the pre-Raphaelite
pictures. I had intended, in continuation of my first letter, to
institute as close an inquiry as I could into the character of the
morbid tendencies which prevent these works from favorably arresting the
attention of the public; but I believe there are so few pictures in the
Academy whose reputation would not be grievously diminished by a
deliberate inventory of their errors, that I am disinclined to undertake
so ungracious a task with respect to this or that particular work. These
points, however, may be noted, partly for the consideration of the
painters themselves, partly that forgiveness of them may be asked from
the public in consideration of high merits in other respects.
The most painful of these defects is unhappily also the most
prominent--the commonness of feature in many of the principal figures.
In Mr. Hunt’s “Valentine defending Sylvia,” this is, indeed, almost the
only fault. Further examination of this picture has even raised the
estimate I had previously formed of its marvellous truth in detail and
splendor in color; nor is its general conception less deserving of
praise: the action of Valentine, his arm thrown round Sylvia, and his
hand clasping hers at the same instant as she falls at his feet, is most
faithful and beautiful, nor less so the contending of doubt and distress
with awakening hope in the half-shadowed, half-sunlit countenance of
Julia. Nay, even the momentary struggle of Proteus with Sylvia just
past, is indicated by the trodden grass and broken fungi of the
foreground. But all this thoughtful conception, and absolutely
inimitable execution, fail in making immediate appeal to the feelings,
owing to the unfortunate type chosen for the face of Sylvia. Certainly
this cannot be she whose lover was
“As rich in having such a jewel,
As twenty seas, if all their sands were pearl.”[71]
Nor is it, perhaps, less to be regretted that, while in Shakspeare’s
play there are nominally “Two Gentlemen,” in Mr. Hunt’s picture there
should only be one--at least, the kneeling figure on the right has by no
means the look of a gentleman. But this may be on purpose, for any one
who remembers the conduct of Proteus throughout the previous scenes
will, I think, be disposed to consider that the error lies more in
Shakspeare’s nomenclature than in Mr. Hunt’s ideal.
No defence can, however, be offered for the choice of features in the
left-hand figure of Mr. Millais’ “Dove returning to the Ark.” I cannot
understand how a painter so sensible of the utmost refinement of beauty
in other objects should deliberately choose for his model a type far
inferior to that of average humanity, and unredeemed by any expression
save that of dull self-complacency. Yet, let the spectator who desires
to be just turn away from this head, and contemplate rather the tender
and beautiful expression of the stooping figure, and the intense harmony
of color in the exquisitely finished draperies; let him note also the
ruffling of the plumage of the wearied dove, one of its feathers falling
on the arm of the figure which holds it, and another to the ground,
where, by the bye, the hay is painted not only elaborately, but with the
most perfect ease of touch and mastery of effect, especially to be
observed because this freedom of execution is a modern excellence, which
it has been inaccurately stated that these painters despise, but which,
in reality, is one of the remarkable distinctions between their painting
and that of Van Eyck or Hemling, which caused me to say in my first
letter that “those knew little of ancient painting who supposed the
works of these men to resemble it.”
Next to this false choice of feature, and in connection with it, is to
be noted the defect in the coloring of the flesh. The hands, at least in
the pictures in Millais, are almost always ill painted, and the flesh
tint in general is wrought out of crude purples and dusky yellows. It
appears just possible that much of this evil may arise from the attempt
to obtain too much transparency--an attempt which has injured also not a
few of the best works of Mulready. I believe it will be generally found
that close study of minor details is unfavorable to flesh painting; it
was noticed of the drawing by John Lewis, in the old water-color
exhibition of 1850[72] (a work which, as regards its treatment of
detail, may be ranged in the same class with the pre-Raphaelite
pictures), that the faces were the worst painted portions of the whole.
The apparent want of shade is, however, perhaps the fault which most
hurts the general eye. The fact is, nevertheless, that the fault is far
more in the other pictures of the Academy than in the pre-Raphaelite
ones. It is the former that are false, not the latter, except so far as
every picture must be false which endeavors to represent living sunlight
with dead pigments. I think Mr. Hunt has a slight tendency to exaggerate
reflected lights; and if Mr. Millais has ever been near a piece of good
painted glass, he ought to have known that its tone is more dusky and
sober than that of his Mariana’s window. But for the most part these
pictures are rashly condemned because the only light which we are
accustomed to see represented is that which falls on the artist’s model
in his dim painting room, not that of sunshine in the fields.
I do not think I can go much further in fault-finding. I had, indeed,
something to urge respecting what I supposed to be the Romanizing
tendencies of the painters; but I have received a letter assuring me
that I was wrong in attributing to them anything of the kind; whereupon,
all that I can say is that, instead of the “pilgrimage” of Mr. Collins’
maiden over a plank and round a fish-pond, that old pilgrimage of
Christiana and her children towards the place where they should “look
the Fountain of Mercy in the face,” would have been more to the purpose
in these times. And so I wish them all heartily good-speed, believing in
sincerity that if they temper the courage and energy which they have
shown in the adoption of their systems with patience and discretion in
framing it, and if they do not suffer themselves to be driven by harsh
or careless criticism into rejection of the ordinary means of obtaining
influence over the minds of others, they may, as they gain experience,
lay in our England the foundations of a school of art nobler than the
world has seen for three hundred years.[73]
I have the honor to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
THE AUTHOR OF “MODERN PAINTERS.”
DENMARK HILL, May 26.
[From “The Times,” May 5, 1854.]
_“THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.”_
BY HOLMAN HUNT.
_To the Editor of “The Times.”_
SIR: I trust that, with your usual kindness and liberality, you will
give me room in your columns for a few words respecting the principal
pre-Raphaelite picture in the Exhibition of the Royal Academy this year.
Its painter is travelling in the Holy Land, and can neither suffer nor
benefit by criticism. But I am solicitous that justice should be done to
his work, not for his sake, but for that of the large number of persons
who, during the year, will have an opportunity of seeing it, and on
whom, if rightly understood, it may make an impression for which they
will ever afterwards be grateful.[74]
I speak of the picture called “the Light of the World,” by Mr. Holman
Hunt. Standing by it yesterday for upwards of an hour, I watched the
effect it produced upon the passers-by. Few stopped to look at it, and
those who did almost invariably with some contemptuous expression,
founded on what appeared to them the absurdity of representing the
Saviour with a lantern in his hand. Now, it ought to be remembered that,
whatever may be the faults of a præ-Raphaelite picture, it must at least
have taken much time; and therefore it may not unwarrantably be presumed
that conceptions which are to be laboriously realized are not adopted in
the first instance without some reflection. So that the spectator may
surely question with himself whether the objections which now strike
every one in a moment might not possibly have occurred to the painter
himself, either during the time devoted to the design of the picture, or
the months of labor required for its execution; and whether, therefore,
there may not be some reason for his persistence in such an idea, not
discoverable at the first glance.
Mr. Hunt has never explained his work to me. I give what appears to me
its palpable interpretation.
The legend beneath it is the beautiful verse, “Behold, I stand at the
door and knock. If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come
in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”--Rev. iii. 20. On the
left-hand side of the picture is seen this door of the human soul. It is
fast barred: its bars and nails are rusty; it is knitted and bound to
its stanchions by creeping tendrils of ivy, showing that it has never
been opened. A bat hovers about it; its threshold is overgrown with
brambles, nettles, and fruitless corn--the wild grass “whereof the mower
filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth the sheaves his bosom.” Christ
approaches it in the night-time--Christ, in his everlasting offices of
prophet, priest, and king. He wears the white robe, representing the
power of the Spirit upon him; the jewelled robe and breast-plate,
representing the sacerdotal investiture; the rayed crown of gold,
inwoven with the crown of thorns; not dead thorns, but now bearing soft
leaves, for the healing of the nations.
Now, when Christ enters any human heart, he bears with him a twofold
light: first, the light of conscience, which displays past sin, and
afterwards the light of peace, the hope of salvation. The lantern,
carried in Christ’s left hand, is this light of conscience. Its fire is
red and fierce; it falls only on the closed door, on the weeds which
encumber it, and on an apple shaken from one of the trees of the
orchard, thus marking that the entire awakening of the conscience is not
merely to committed, but to hereditary guilt.
The light is suspended by a chain, wrapt about the wrist of the figure,
showing that the light which reveals sin appears to the sinner also to
chain the hand of Christ.