is that of the hope of salvation; it springs from the crown of thorns,
and, though itself sad, subdued, and full of softness, is yet so
powerful that it entirely melts into the glow of it the forms of the
leaves and boughs, which it crosses, showing that every earthly object
must be hidden by this light, where its sphere extends.
I believe there are very few persons on whom the picture, thus justly
understood, will not produce a deep impression. For my own part, I think
it one of the very noblest works of sacred art ever produced in this or
any other age.
It may, perhaps, be answered, that works of art ought not to stand in
need of interpretation of this kind. Indeed, we have been so long
accustomed to see pictures painted without any purpose or intention
whatsoever, that the unexpected existence of meaning in a work of art
may very naturally at first appear to us an unkind demand on the
spectator’s understanding. But in a few years more I hope the English
public may be convinced of the simple truth, that neither a great fact,
nor a great man, nor a great poem, nor a great picture, nor any other
great thing, can be fathomed to the very bottom in a moment of time; and
that no high enjoyment, either in picture-seeing or any other
occupation, is consistent with a total lethargy of the powers of the
understanding.
As far as regards the technical qualities of Mr. Hunt’s painting, I
would only ask the spectator to observe this difference between true
præ-Raphaelite work and its imitations. The true work represents all
objects exactly as they would appear in nature in the position and at
the distances which the arrangement of the picture supposes. The false
work represents them with all their details, as if seen through a
microscope. Examine closely the ivy on the door in Mr. Hunt’s picture,
and there will not be found in it a single clear outline. All is the
most exquisite mystery of color; becoming reality at its due distance.
In like manner examine the small gems on the robe of the figure. Not one
will be made out in form, and yet there is not one of all those minute
points of green color, but it has two or three distinctly varied shades
of green in it, giving it mysterious value and lustre.
The spurious imitations of præ-Raphaelite work represent the most minute
leaves and other objects with sharp outlines, but with no variety of
color, and with none of the concealment, none of the infinity of nature.
With this spurious work the walls of the Academy are half covered; of
the true school one very small example may be pointed out, being hung so
low that it might otherwise escape attention. It is not by any means
perfect, but still very lovely--the study of a calm pool in a mountain
brook, by Mr. J. Dearle, No. 191, “Evening, on the Marchno, North
Wales.”[75]
I have the honor to be, Sir.
Your obedient servant,
THE AUTHOR OF “MODERN PAINTERS.”
DENMARK HILL, _May_ 4.
[From “The Times,” May 25, 1854.]
_“THE AWAKENING CONSCIENCE.”_
BY HOLMAN HUNT.
_To the Editor of “The Times.”_
SIR: Your kind insertion of my notes on Mr. Hunt’s principal picture
encourages me to hope that you may yet allow me room in your columns for
a few words respecting his second work in the Royal Academy, the
“Awakening Conscience.” Not that this picture is obscure, or its story
feebly told. I am at a loss to know how its meaning could be rendered
more distinctly, but assuredly it is not understood. People gaze at it
in a blank wonder, and leave it hopelessly; so that, though it is almost
an insult to the painter to explain his thoughts in this instance, I
cannot persuade myself to leave it thus misunderstood. The poor girl has
been sitting singing with her seducer; some chance words of the song,
“Oft in the stilly night,” have struck upon the numbed places of her
heart; she has started up in agony; he, not seeing her face, goes on
singing, striking the keys carelessly with his gloved hand.
I suppose that no one professing the slightest knowledge of expression
could remain untouched by the countenance of the lost girl, rent from
its beauty into sudden horror; the lips half open, indistinct in their
purple quivering; the teeth set hard; the eyes filled with the fearful
light of futurity, and with tears of ancient days. But I can easily
understand that to many persons the careful rendering of the inferior
details in this picture cannot but be at first offensive, as calling
their attention away from the principal subject. It is true that detail
of this kind has long been so carelessly rendered, that the perfect
finishing of it becomes a matter of curiosity, and therefore an
interruption to serious thought. But, without entering into the question
of the general propriety of such treatment, I would only observe that,
at least in this instance, it is based on a truer principle of the
pathetic than any of the common artistical expedients of the schools.
Nothing is more notable than the way in which even the most trivial
objects force themselves upon the attention of a mind which has been
fevered by violent and distressful excitement. They thrust themselves
forward with a ghastly and unendurable distinctness, as if they would
compel the sufferer to count, or measure, or learn them by heart. Even
to the mere spectator a strange interest exalts the accessories of a
scene in which he bears witness to human sorrow. There is not a single
object in all that room--common, modern, vulgar (in the vulgar sense, as
it may be), but it becomes tragical, if rightly read. That furniture so
carefully painted, even to the last vein of the rosewood--is there
nothing to be learnt from that terrible lustre of it, from its fatal
newness; nothing there that has the old thoughts of home upon it, or
that is ever to become a part of home? Those embossed books, vain and
useless,--they also new,--marked with no happy wearing of beloved
leaves; the torn and dying bird upon the floor; the gilded tapestry,
with the fowls of the air feeding on the ripened corn; the picture above
the fireplace, with its single drooping figure--the woman taken in
adultery; nay, the very hem of the poor girl’s dress, at which the
painter has labored so closely, thread by thread, has story in it, if we
think how soon its pure whiteness may be soiled with dust and rain, her
outcast feet failing in the street; and the fair garden flowers, seen in
that reflected sunshine of the mirror--these also have their language--
“Hope not to find delight in us, they say,
For we are spotless, Jessy--we are pure.”[76]
I surely need not go on. Examine the whole range of the walls of the
Academy,--nay, examine those of all our public and private
galleries,--and while pictures will be met with by the thousand which
literally tempt to evil, by the thousand which are directed to the
meanest trivialities of incident or emotion, by the thousand to the
delicate fancies of inactive religion, there will not be found one
powerful as this to meet full in the front the moral evil of the age in
which it is painted; to waken into mercy the cruel thoughtlessness of
youth, and subdue the severities of judgment into the sanctity of
compassion.
I have the honor to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
THE AUTHOR OF “MODERN PAINTERS.”
DENMARK HILL.
[From “The Liverpool Albion,” January 11, 1858.]
_PRE-RAPHAELITISM IN LIVERPOOL._
I believe the Liverpool Academy has, in its decisions of late years,
given almost the first instance on record of the entirely just and
beneficial working of academical system. Usually such systems have
degenerated into the application of formal rules, or the giving partial
votes, or the distribution of a partial patronage; but the Liverpool
awards have indicated at once the keen perception of new forms of
excellence, and the frank honesty by which alone such new forms can be
confessed and accepted. I do not, however, wonder at the outcry. People
who suppose the pre-Raphaelite work to be only a condition of
meritorious eccentricity, naturally suppose, also, that the consistent
preference of it can only be owing to clique. Most people look upon
paintings as they do on plants or minerals, and think they ought to have
in their collections specimens of everybody’s work, as they have
specimens of all earths or flowers. They have no conception that there
is such a thing as a real right and wrong, a real bad and good, in the
question. However, you need not, I think, much mind. Let the Academy be
broken up on the quarrels; let the Liverpool people buy whatever rubbish
they have a mind to; and when they see, as in time they will, that it
_is_ rubbish, and find, as find they will, every pre-Raphaelite picture
gradually advance in influence and in value, you will be acknowledged to
have borne a witness all the more noble and useful, because it seemed to
end in discomfiture; though it will _not_ end in discomfiture. I suppose
I need hardly say anything of my own estimate of the two pictures on
which the arbitrament has arisen, I have surely said often enough, in
good black type already, what I thought of pre-Raphaelite works, and of
other modern ones. Since Turner’s death I consider that any average work
from the hand of any of the four leaders of pre-Raphaelitism (Rosetti,
Millais, Hunt, John Lewis) is, singly, worth at least _three_ of any
other pictures whatever by living artists.
JOHN RUSKIN.
[From “The Witness” (Edinburgh), March 27, 1858.]
_GENERALIZATION AND THE SCOTCH PRE-RAPHAELITES._
_To the Editor of “The Witness.”_
I was very glad to see that good and firm defence of the pre-Raphaelite
Brothers in the _Witness_[77] the other day; only, my dear Editor, it
appears to me that you take too much trouble in the matter. Such a
lovely picture as that of Waller Paton’s must either speak for itself,
or nobody can speak for it. If you Scotch people don’t know a bit of
your own country when you see it, who is to help you to know it? If, in
that mighty wise town of Edinburgh, everybody still likes flourishes of
brush better than ferns, and dots of paint better than birch leaves,
surely there is nothing for it but to leave them in quietude of devotion
to dot and faith in flourish. At least I can see no other way of
dealing. All those platitudes from the _Scotsman_, which you took the
pains to answer, have been answered ten thousand times already, without
the smallest effect--the kind of people who utter them being always too
misty in their notions ever to feel or catch an answer. You may as well
speak to the air, or rather to a Scotch mist. The oddest part of the
business is, that all those wretched fallacies about generalization
might be quashed or crushed in an instant, by reference to any given
picture of any great master who ever lived. There never was anybody who
generalized, since paint was first ground, except Opie, and Benjamin
West, and Fuseli, and one or two other such modern stars--in their own
estimates,--night-lights, in fact, extinguishing themselves, not
odoriferously at daybreak, in a sputter in the saucer. Titian,
Giorgione, Veronese, Tintoret, Raphael, Leonardo, Correggio,--never any
of them dreamt of generalization, and would have rejected the dream as
having come by the horn gate,[78] if they had. The only difference
between them and the pre-Raphaelites is, that the latter love nature
better, and don’t yet know their artist’s business so well, having
everything to find out for themselves athwart all sorts of
contradiction, poor fellows; so they are apt to put too much into their
pictures--for love’s sake, and then not to bring this much into perfect
harmony; not yet being able to bridle their thoughts entirely with the
master’s hand. I don’t say therefore--I never have said--that their
pictures are faultless--many of them have gross faults; but the modern
pictures of the generalist school, which are opposed to them, have
nothing else but faults: they are not pictures at all, but pure daubs
and perfect blunders; nay, they have never had aim enough to be called
anything so honorable as blunders; they are mere emptinesses and
idlenesses--thistledown without seeds, and bubbles without color;
whereas the worst pre-Raphaelite picture has something _in_ it; and the
great ones, such as Windus’s “Burd Helen,”[79] will hold their own with
the most noble pictures of all time.
Always faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
By the way, what ails you at our pre-Raphaelite Brothers’ conceits?
Windus’s heart’s-ease might have been a better conceit, I grant
you;[80] but for the conceits themselves, as such, I always enjoy them
particularly; and I don’t understand why I shouldn’t. What’s wrong in
them?
LETTERS ON ART.
IV.
TURNER.
THE TURNER BEQUEST. 1856.
THE TURNER BEQUEST AND THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 1857.
THE TURNER SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS. 1858.
THE TURNER GALLERY AT KENSINGTON. 1859.
TURNER’S DRAWINGS. 1876 (July 5).
TURNER’S DRAWINGS. 1876 (July 19).
COPIES OF TURNER’S DRAWINGS. 1876.
“TURNERS,” FALSE AND TRUE. 1871.
THE CHARACTER OF TURNER. 1857.
IV.
TURNER.
[From “The Times,” October 28, 1856.]
_THE TURNER BEQUEST._
_To the Editor of “The Times.”_
SIR: As active measures are being now[81] taken to give the public
access to the pictures and drawings left by the late Mr. Turner, you
will perhaps allow me space in your columns for a few words respecting
them.
I was appointed by Mr. Turner one of his executors. I examined the will,
and the state of the property needing administration, and, finding that
the questions arising out of the obscurity of the one and the disorder
of the other would be numerous and would involve a kind of business in
which I had no skill or knowledge, I resigned the office; but in the
course of the inquiry I catalogued the most interesting of the drawings
which are now national property, and respecting these the public will, I
think, be glad of more definite information than they at present
possess. They are referable mainly to three classes.
1. Finished water-color drawings.
2. Studies from nature, or first thoughts for pictures; in color.
3. Sketches in pencil or pen and ink.
The drawings belonging to the two latter classes are in various stages
of completion, and would contain, if rightly arranged, a perfect record
of the movements of the master’s mind during his whole life. Many of
them were so confused among prints and waste-paper that I could neither
collect nor catalogue them all in the time I had at my disposal; some
portfolios I was not able even to open. The following statement,
therefore, omits mention of many, and I believe even of some large
water-color drawings. There are in the first class forty-five drawings
of the “Rivers of France;” fifty-seven illustrating Rogers’ Poems;
twenty-three of the “River Scenery” and “Harbors of England;” four
marine vignettes; five middle-sized drawings (including the beautiful
“Ivy Bridge”); and a drawing, some three feet by two, finished with
exquisite care, of a scene in the Val d’Aosta; total, 135.
It would occupy too much of your space if I were to specify all the
various kinds of studies forming the second class. Many are far carried,
and are, to my mind, more precious and lovely than any finished
drawings; respecting some, there may be question whether Turner regarded
them as finished or not. The larger number are light sketches, valuable
only to artists, or to those interested in the processes of Turner’s
mind and hand. The total number of those which I catalogued as important
is 1,757.
The sketches of the third class are usually more elaborate than the
colored ones. They consist of studies from nature, or for composition,
in firm outline, usually on gray paper, heightened with white. They
include, among other subjects, more or less complete, fifty of the
original drawings for the Liber Studiorum, and many of the others are of
large folio size. The total of those I consider important is 1,322. Now
the value of these sketches to the public consists greatly, first, in
the preservation of each, as far as possible, in the state in which
Turner left it; secondly, in their careful arrangement and explanation;
thirdly, in convenience of general access to them. Permit me a word on
each of these heads.
Turner was in the habit of using unusual vehicles, and in the colored
studies many hues are wrought out by singular means and with singular
delicacy--nearly always in textures which the slightest damp (to which
the drawings would necessarily be subjected in the process of mounting)
would assuredly alter. I have made many experiments in mounting, putting
colored drawings, of which I had previously examined the tones, into the
hands of the best mounters, and I have never yet had a drawing returned
to me without alteration. The vast mass of these sketches, and the
comparative slightness of many, would but too probably induce a
carelessness and generalization in the treatment they might have to
undergo still more fatally detrimental to them.
Secondly, a large number are without names, and so slight that it
requires careful examination and somewhat extended acquaintance with
Turner’s works to ascertain their intention. The sketches of this class
are nearly valueless, till their meaning is deciphered, but of great
interest when seen in their proper connection. Thus there are three
progressive studies for one vignette in _Rogers’ Italy_[82] (Hannibal
passing the Alps), which I extricated from three several heaps of other
mountain sketches with which they had no connection. Thirdly, a large
number of the drawings are executed with body color, the bloom of which
any friction or handling would in a short period destroy. Their delicate
tones of color would be equally destroyed by continuous exposure to the
light or to smoke and dust.
Drawings of a valuable character, when thus destructible, are in
European museums hardly accessible to the general public. But there is
no need for this seclusion. They should be inclosed each in a light
wooden frame, under a glass the surface of which a raised mount should
prevent them from touching. These frames should slide into cases,
containing about twelve drawings each, which would be portable to any
part of the room where they were to be seen. I have long kept my own
smaller Turner drawings in this manner; fifteen frames going into the
depth of about a foot. Men are usually accused of “bad taste,” if they
express any conviction of their own ability to execute any given work.
But it would perhaps be better if in people’s sayings in general,
whether concerning others or themselves, there were less taste, and more
truth; and I think it, under the circumstances, my duty to state that I
believe none would treat these drawings with more scrupulous care, or
arrange them with greater patience, than I should myself; that I am
ready to undertake the task, and enter upon it instantly; that I will
furnish, in order to prove the working of the system proposed, a hundred
of the frames, with their cases, at my own cost; and that within six
weeks of the day on which I am permitted to begin work (illness or
accident not interfering), I will have the hundred drawings arranged,
framed, accompanied by a printed explanatory catalogue, and ready for
public inspection. It would then be in the power of the commissioners
intrusted with the administration of this portion of the national
property to decide if any, or how many more of the sketches, should be
exhibited in the same manner, as a large mass of the less interesting
ones might be kept as the drawings are at the British Museum, and shown
only on special inquiry.
I will only undertake this task on condition of the entire management of
the drawings, in every particular, being intrusted to me; but I should
ask the advice of Mr. Carpenter, of the British Museum,[83] on all
doubtful points, and intrust any necessary operations only to the person
who mounts the drawings for the British Museum.
I make this offer[84] in your columns rather than privately, first,
because I wish it to be clearly known to the public; and
[Illustration]
also because I have no time to make representations in official ways,
the very hours which I could give to the work needing to be redeemed by
allowing none to be wasted in formalities.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN
DENMARK HILL, _Oct._ 27.
[From “The Times,” July 9, 1857.]
_THE TURNER BEQUEST AND THE NATIONAL GALLERY._
_To the Editor of “The Times.”_
SIR: I am sorry that accident has prevented my seeing the debate of
Friday last[85] on the vote for the National Gallery until to-day. Will
you permit me, thus late, to correct the statement made by Lord Elcho,
that I offered to arrange Turner’s pictures, or could have done so as
well as Mr. Wornum[86] I only offered to arrange the sketches, and that
I am doing; but I never would have undertaken the pictures, which were
in such a state of decay that I had given up many for lost; while, also,
most of them belonged to periods of Turner’s work with which I was
little acquainted. Mr. Wornum’s patience and carefulness of research in
discovering their subjects, dates of exhibition, and other points of
interest connected with them, have been of the greatest service; and it
will be long before the labor and judgment which he has shown in
compiling, not only this, but all the various catalogues now used by the
public at our galleries, will be at all justly appreciated. I find more
real, serviceable, and trustworthy facts in one of these catalogues,
than in half a dozen of the common collections of lives of painters.
Permit me to add further, that during long residence in Venice, I have
carefully examined the Paul Veronese lately purchased by the
Government.[87] When I last saw it, it was simply the best Veronese in
Italy, if not in Europe (the “Marriage in Cana” of the Louvre is larger
and more magnificent, but not so perfect in finish); and, for my own
part, I should think no price too large for it; but putting my own deep
reverence for the painter wholly out of the question, and considering
the matter as it will appear to most persons at all acquainted with the
real character and range of Venetian work, I believe the market value of
the picture ought to be estimated at perhaps one-third more than the
Government have paid for it. Without doubt the price of the Murillo
lately purchased at Paris was much enhanced by accidental competition;
under ordinary circumstances, and putting both the pictures to a fair
trial of market value, I believe the Veronese to be worth at least
double the Murillo; in an artistical point of view, the latter picture
could not be put in any kind of comparison whatever with the Veronese.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
OXFORD, _July_ 7.
[From “The Literary Gazette,” November 13, 1858--partly reprinted in “The Two
Paths,” Appendix iv.]
_THE TURNER SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS[88]_
_To the Editor of “The Literary Gazette.”_