By John L. Tupper: "The Subject in Art." Two papers, which do not
complete the important thesis here undertaken. Mr. Tupper was, for an
artist, a man of unusually scientific mind; yet he was not, I think,
distinguished by that power of orderly and progressive exposition
which befits an argumentation. These papers exhibit a good deal of
thought, and state several truths which, even if partial truths, are
not the less deserving of attention; but the dissertation does not
produce a very clear impression, inasmuch as there is too great a
readiness to plunge, _in medias res_, checked by too great a tendency
to harking back, and re-stating some conclusion in modified terms and
with insecure corollaries. Two points which Mr. Tupper chiefly
insists upon are: (1) that the subject in a work of art affects the
beholder in the same sort of way as the same subject, occurring as a
fact or aspect of Nature, affects him; and thus whatever in Nature
excites the mental and moral emotion of man is a right subject for
fine art; and (2), that subjects of our own day should not be
discarded in favour of those of a past time. These principles, along
with others bearing in the same direction, underlie the propositions
lately advanced by Count Leo Tolstoy in his most interesting and
valuable (though I think one-sided) book entitled "What is Art?"--and
the like may be said of the principles announced in the "Hand and
Soul" of Dante Rossetti, and in the "Dialogue on Art" by John
Orchard, through the mouths of two of the speakers, Christian and
Sophon. I have once or twice seen these papers by Mr. Tupper
commented upon to the effect that he wholly ignores the question of
art-merit in a work of art, the question whether it is good or bad in
form, colour, etc. But this is a mistake, for in fact he allows that
this is a relevant consideration, but declines to bring it within his
own lines of discussion. There is also a curious passage which has
been remarked upon as next door to absurd; that where, in treating of
various forms of still life as inferior subjects for art, he says
that "the dead pheasant in a picture will always be as 'food,' while
the same at the poulterer's will be but a dead pheasant." I do not
perceive that this is really absurd. At the poulterer's (and Mr.
Tupper has proceeded to say as much in his article) all the items are
in fact food, and therefore the spectator attends to the differences
between them; one being a pheasant, one a fowl, one a rabbit, etc.
But, in a varied collection of pictures, most of the works
representing some subject quite unconnected with food; and, if you
see among them one, such as a dead pheasant, representing an article
of food, that is the point which primarily occurs to your mind as
distinguishing this particular picture from the others. The views
expressed by Mr. Tupper in these two papers should be regarded as his
own, and not by any means necessarily those upheld by the
Praeraphaelite Brotherhood. The members of this body must however
have agreed with several of his utterances, and sympathized with
others, apart from strict agreement.
By Patmore: "The Seasons." This choice little poem was volunteered to
"The Germ" in September, after the author had read our prospectus,
which impressed him favourably. He withheld his name, much to our
disappointment, having resolved to do so in all instances where
something of his might be published pending the issue of a new
volume.
By Christina Rossetti: "Dream Land." Though my sister was only just
nineteen when this remarkable lyric was printed, she had already made
some slight appearance in published type (not to speak of the
privately printed "Verses" of 1847), as two small poems of hers had
been inserted in "The Athenaeum" in October 1848. "Dream Land" was
written in April 1849, before "The Germ" was thought of; and it may
be as well to say that all my sister's contributions to this magazine
were produced without any reference to publication in that or in any
particular form.
By Dante G. Rossetti: "My Sister's Sleep." This purports to be No. 1
of "Songs of One Household." I do not much think that Dante Rossetti
ever wrote any other poem which would have been proper to such a
series. "My Sister's Sleep" was composed very soon after he emerged
from a merely juvenile stage of work. I believe that it dates before
"The Blessed Damozel," and therefore before May 1847. It is not
founded upon any actual event affecting the Rossetti family, nor any
family of our acquaintance. As I have said in my Memoir of my brother
(1895), the poem was shown, perhaps early in 1848, by Major Calder
Campbell to the editress of the "Belle Assemblée," who heartily
admired it, but, for one reason or another, did not publish it. This
composition is somewhat noticeable on more grounds than one; not
least as being in a metre which was not much in use until it became
famous in Tennyson's "In Memoriam," published in 1850, and of course
totally unknown to Rossetti when he wrote "My Sister's Sleep." In
later years my brother viewed this early work with some distaste, and
he only reluctantly reprinted it in his "Poems," 1870. He then wholly
omitted the four stanzas 7, 8, 12, 13, beginning: "Silence was
speaking," "I said, full knowledge," "She stood a moment," "Almost
unwittingly"; and he made some other verbal alterations.{2} It will
be observed that this poem was written long before the Praeraphaelite
movement began. None the less it shows in an eminent degree one of
the influences which guided that movement: the intimate intertexture
of a spiritual sense with a material form; small actualities made
vocal of lofty meanings.
{2} I may call attention to Stanza 16, "She stooped an instant." The
word is "stooped" in "The Germ," and in the "Poems" of 1870. This is
undoubtedly correct; but in my brother's re-issue of the "Poems,"
1881, the word got mis-printed "stopped"; and I find the same
mis-print in subsequent editions.
By Dante G. Rossetti: "Hand and Soul." This tale was, I think,
written with an express view to its appearing in No. 1 of our
magazine, and Rossetti began making for it an etching, which, though
not ready for No. 1, was intended to appear in some number later than
the second. He drew it in March 1850; but, being disgusted with the
performance, he scratched the plate over, and tore up the prints. The
design showed Chiaro dell' Erma in the act of painting his embodied
Soul. Though the form of this tale is that of romantic metaphor, its
substance is a very serious manifesto of art-dogma. It amounts to
saying, The only satisfactory works of art are those which exhibit
the very soul of the artist. To work for fame or self-display is a
failure, and to work for direct moral proselytizing is a failure; but
to paint that which your own perceptions and emotions urge you to
paint promises to be a success for yourself, and hence a benefit to
the mass of beholders. This was the core of the "Praeraphaelite"
creed; with the adjunct (which hardly came within the scope of
Rossetti's tale, and yet may be partly traced there) that the artist
cannot attain to adequate self-expression save through a stern study
and realization of natural appearances. And it may be said that to
this core of the Praeraphaelite creed Rossetti always adhered
throughout his life, greatly different though his later works are
from his earlier ones in the externals of artistic style. Most of
"Hand and Soul" was written on December 21, 1849, day and night,
chiefly in some five hours beginning after midnight. Three currents
of thought may be traced in this story: (1) A certain amount of
knowledge regarding the beginnings of Italian art, mingled with some
ignorance, voluntary or involuntary, of what was possible to be done
in the middle of the thirteenth century; (2) a highly ideal, yet
individual, general treatment of the narrative; and (3) a curious
aptitude at detailing figments as if they were facts. All about
Chiaro dell' Erma himself, Dresden and Dr. Aemmster, D'Agincourt,
pictures at the Pitti Gallery, the author's visit to Florence in
1847, etc., are pure inventions or "mystifications"; but so
realistically put that they have in various instances been relied
upon and cited as truths. I gave some details as to this in my Memoir
of Dante Rossetti. The style of writing in "Hand and Soul" is of a
very exceptional kind. My brother had at that time a great affection
for "Stories after Nature," written by Charles Wells (author of
"Joseph and his Brethren"), and these he kept in view to some extent
as a model, though the direct resemblance is faint indeed. In the
conversation of foreign art-students, forming the epilogue, he may
have been not wholly oblivious of the scene in Browning's "Pippa
Passes" (a prime favourite of his), where some "foreign students of
painting and sculpture" are preparing a disagreeable surprise for the
French sculptor Jules. There is, however, no sort of imitation; and
Rossetti's dialogue is the more markedly natural of the two. In
re-reading "Hand and Soul," I am struck by two passages which came
true of Rossetti himself in after-life: (1) "Sometimes after
nightfall he would walk abroad in the most solitary places he could
find--hardly feeling the ground under him because of the thoughts of
the day which held him in fever." (2) "Often he would remain at work
through the whole of a day, not resting once so long as the light
lasted." When Rossetti, in 1869, was collecting his poems, and
getting them privately printed with a view to after-publication, he
thought of including "Hand and Soul" in the same volume, but did not
eventually do so. The privately-printed copy forms a small pamphlet,
which has sometimes been sold at high prices--I believe £10 and
upwards. At this time I pointed out to him that the church at Pisa
which he named San Rocco could not possibly have borne that name--San
Rocco being a historical character who lived at a later date: the
Church was then re-named "San Petronio," and this I believe is the
only change of the least importance introduced into the reprint. In
December 1870 the tale was published in "The Fortnightly Review." The
Rev. Alfred Gurney (deceased not long ago) was a great admirer of
Dante Rossetti's works. He published in 1883 a brochure named "A
Dream of Fair Women, a Study of some Pictures by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti"; he also published an essay on "Hand and Soul," giving a
more directly religious interpretation to the story than its author
had at all intended. It is entitled "A Painter's Day-dream."
By W. M. Rossetti: "Review of Clough's Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich."
The only remark which I need to make on this somewhat ponderous
article is that I, as Editor of "The Germ," was more or less expected
to do the sort of work for which other "proprietors" had little
inclination--such especially as the regular reviewing of new poems.
By W. M. Rossetti: "Her First Season: Sonnet." As I have said
elsewhere, my brother and I were at one time greatly addicted to
writing sonnets together to _bouts-rimés_: the date may have been
chiefly 1848, and the practice had, I think, quite ceased for some
little while before "The Germ" commenced in 1850. This sonnet was one
of my _bouts-rimés_ performances. I ought to have been more chary
than I was of introducing into our seriously-intended magazine such
hap-hazard things as _bouts-rimés_ poems: one reason for doing so was
that we were often at a loss for something to fill a spare page.
By John L. Tupper: "A Sketch from Nature." The locality indicated in
these very spirited descriptive lines is given as "Sydenham Wood."
When I was compiling the posthumous volume of John Tupper's "Poems"
which came out in 1897, I should, so far as merit is concerned, have
wished to include this little piece: it was omitted solely on the
ground of its being already published.
By Christina Rossetti: "An End." Written in March 1849.
By Collinson: "The Child Jesus, a Record Typical of the Five
Sorrowful Mysteries." Collinson, as I have already said, was hardly a
writing man, and I question whether he had produced a line of verse
prior to undertaking this by no means trivial task. The poem, like
the etching which he did for it, is deficient in native strength, nor
is there much invention in the symbolical incidents which make it up:
but its general level, and several of its lines and passages, always
appeared to me, and still appear, highly laudable, and far better
than could have been reckoned for. Here and there a telling line was
supplied by Dante Rossetti. Millais, when shortly afterwards in
Oxford, found that the poem had made some sensation there. It is
singular that Collinson should, throughout his composition, speak of
Nazareth as being on the sea-shore--which is the reverse of the fact.
The Praeraphaelites, with all their love of exact truth to nature,
were a little arbitrary in applying the principle; and Collinson
seems to have regarded it as quite superfluous to look into a map,
and see whether Nazareth was near the sea or not. Or possibly he
trusted to Dante Rossetti's poem "Ave," in which likewise Nazareth is
a marine town. My brother advisedly stuck to this in 1869, when I
pointed out the error to him: he replied, "I fear the sea must remain
at Nazareth: you know an old painter would have made no bones if he
wanted it for his background." I cannot say whether Collinson, if put
to it, would have pleaded the like arbitrary and almost burlesque
excuse: at any rate he made the blunder, and in a much more detailed
shape than in Rossetti's lyric. "The Child Jesus" is, I think, the
poem of any importance that he ever wrote.
By Christina Rossetti: "A Pause of Thought." On the wrapper of "The
Germ" the writer's name is given as "Ellen Alleyn": this was my
brother's concoction, as Christina did not care to figure under her
own name. "A Pause of Thought" was written in February 1848, when she
was but little turned of seventeen. Taken as a personal utterance
(which I presume it to be, though I never inquired as to that, and
though it was at first named "Lines in Memory of Schiller's Der
Pilgrim"), it is remarkable; for it seems to show that, even at that
early age, she aspired ardently after poetic fame, with a keen sense
of "hope deferred."
By F. G. Stephens (called "John Seward" on the wrapper): "The Purpose
and Tendency of Early Italian Art." This article speaks for itself as
being a direct outcome of the Praeraphaelite movement: its aim is to
enforce personal independent endeavour, based upon close study of
nature, and to illustrate the like qualities shown in the earlier
school of art. It is more hortatory than argumentative, and is in
fact too short to develop its thesis--it indicates some main points
for reflection.
By W. Bell Scott: "Morning Sleep." This poem delighted us extremely
when Mr. Scott sent it in reply to a request for contributions. I
still think it a noticeably fine thing, and one of his most equable
pieces of execution. It was republished in his volume of "Poems,"
1875--with some verbal changes, and shortened, I think damaged.