“As rich in having such a jewel,As twenty seas, if all their sands were pearl.”[71]
“As rich in having such a jewel,As twenty seas, if all their sands were pearl.”[71]
“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 regardsits 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 aschool 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 displayspast 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.
The light which proceeds from the head of the figure, on the contrary, 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,May4.
[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 ona 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]
“Hope not to find delight in us, they say,For we are spotless, Jessy—we are pure.”[76]
“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 publicand 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 itisrubbish, 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 willnotend 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 leastthreeof 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 theWitness[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 theScotsman, 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 toomuch 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 somethinginit; 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 betterconceit, 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?
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.
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.
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.
[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 inthe 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 inRogers’ 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; fifteenframes 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
image of the letter not available
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 allacquainted 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,July7.
[From “The Literary Gazette,” November 13, 1858—partly reprinted in “The TwoPaths,” Appendix iv.]THE TURNER SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS[88]
To the Editor of “The Literary Gazette.”
Sir: I do not think it generally necessary to answer criticism; yet as yours is the first sufficient notice which has been taken of the important collection of sketches at Marlborough House, and as your strictures on the arrangement proposed for the body of the collection, as well as on some statements in my catalogue, are made with such candor and good feeling, will you allow me to offer one or two observations in reply to them? The mode of arrangement to which you refer as determined onby the trustees has been adopted, not to discourage the study of the drawings by the public, but to put all more completely at their service. Drawings so small in size and so delicate in execution cannot be seen, far less copied, when hung on walls. As now arranged, they can be put into the hands of each visitor, or student, as a book is into those of a reader; he may examine them in any light, or in any position, and copy them at his ease. The students who work from drawings exhibited on walls will, I am sure, bear willing witness to the greater convenience of the new system. Four hundred drawings are already thus arranged for public use; framed, and disposed in eighty portable boxes, each containing five sketches, so that eighty students might at once be supplied with five drawings apiece. The oil paintings at Marlborough House, comprising as they do the most splendid works which Turner ever produced, and the 339 drawings exhibited beside them, are surely enough for the amusement of loungers—for do you consider as anything better than loungers those persons who do not care enough for the Turner drawings to be at the trouble of applying for a ticket of admission, and entering their names in a book—that is to say, who will not, to obtain the privilege of quiet study of perfect art, take, once for all, as much trouble as would be necessary to register a letter, or book, or parcel?
I entirely waive for the moment the question of exposure to light. I put the whole issue on the ground of greatest public convenience. I believe it to be better for the public to have two collections of Turner’s drawings than one; nay, it seems to me just the perfection of all privilege to have one gallery for quiet, another for disquiet; one into which the curious, idle, or speculative may crowd on wet or weary days, and another in which people desirous of either thinking or working seriously may always find peace, light, and elbow-room. I believe, therefore, that the present disposition of these drawings will be at once the most convenient and the most just, even supposing that the finest works of Turner would not be injured by constant exposure. But that they would be so admits of no debate. It is not on my judgment nor on anyother unsupported opinion, that the trustees have acted, but in consideration of facts now universally admitted by persons who have charge of drawings. You will find that the officers both of the Louvre and of the British Museum refuse to expose their best drawings or missal-pages to light, in consequence of ascertained damage received by such drawings as have been already exposed; and among the works of Turner I am prepared to name an example in which, the frame having protected a portion while the rest was exposed, the covered portion is still rich and lovely in colors, while the exposed spaces are reduced in some parts nearly to white paper, and the color in general to a dull brown.
You allude to the contrary chance that some hues may be injured by darkness. I believe that some colors are indeed liable to darken in perpetual shade, but not while occasionally exposed to moderate light, as these drawings will be in daily use; nor is any liability to injury, even by perpetual shade, as yet demonstrable with respect to the Turner drawings; on the contrary, those which now form the great body of the national collection were never out of Turner’s house until his death, and were all kept by him in tight bundles or in clasped books; and all the drawings so kept are in magnificent preservation, appearing as if they had just been executed, while every one of those which have been in the possession of purchasers and exposed in frames are now faded in proportion to the time and degree of their exposure; the lighter hues disappearing, especially from the skies, so as sometimes to leave hardly a trace of the cloud-forms. For instance, the great Yorkshire series is, generally speaking, merely the wreck of what it once was.[89]That water-colors are not injured by darkness is also sufficiently proved by the exquisite preservation of missal paintings, when the books containing them have been little used. Observe, then, you have simply this question to put to the public: “Will you have your Turner drawings to look at when you are atleisure, in a comfortable room, under such limitations as will preserve them to you forever, or will you make an amusing exhibition of them (ifamusing, which I doubt) for children and nursery-maids; dry your wet coats by them, and shake off the dust from your feet upon them, for a score or two of years, and then send them to the waste-paper merchant?” That is the simple question; answer it, for the public, as you think best.
Permit me to observe farther, that the small interest manifested in the existing Turner collection at Marlborough House does not seem to justify any further effort at exhibition. There are already more paintings and drawings placed in those rooms than could be examined properly in years of labor. But how placed? Thrust into dark corners, nailed on spare spaces of shutters, backs of doors, and tottering elongations of screens; hung with their faces to the light, or with their backs to the light, or with their sides to the light so that it “rakes” them (I use an excellent expression of Sir Charles Eastlake’s), throwing every irregularity of surface into view as if they were maps in relief of hill countries; hung, in fine, in every conceivable mode that can exhibit their faults, or conceal their meaning, or degrade their beauty. Neither Mr. Wornum nor I are answerable for this; we have both done the best we could under the circumstances; the public are answerable for it, who suffer such things without care and without remonstrance. If they want to derive real advantage from the treasures they possess, let them show some regard for them, and build, or at least express some desire to get built, a proper gallery for them. I see no way at present out of the embarrassments which exist respecting the disposition of the entire national collection; but the Turner gallery was intended by Turner himself to be a distinct one, and there is no reason why a noble building should not be at once provided for it. Place the oil pictures now at Marlborough House in beautiful rooms, each in a light fit and sufficient for it, and all on a level with the eye; range them in chronological order; place the sketches at present exhibited, also in chronological order, in a lateral gallery; let illustrative engravings and explanations be put in cases near them; furnishthe room richly and gracefully, as the Louvre is furnished, and I do not think the public would any longer complain of not having enough to amuse them on rainy days.
That we ought to do as much for our whole national collection is as certain as that we shall not do it for many a year to come, nor until we have wasted twice as much money as would do it nobly in vain experiments on a mean scale. I have no immediate hope in this matter, else I might perhaps ask you to let me occupy your columns with some repetition, in other words (such repetition being apparently always needed in these talking days), of what I have already stated in the Appendix to my Notes on the oil-pictures[90]at Marlborough House. But I will only, being as I say hopeless in the matter, ask you for room for a single sentence.
“If ever we come to understand that the function of a picture, after all, with respect to mankind, is not merely to be bought, but to be seen, it will follow that a picture which deserves a price deserves a place; and that all paintings which are worth keeping, are worth, also, the rent of so much wall as shall be necessary to show them to the best advantage, and in the least fatiguing way for the spectator.“It would be interesting if we could obtain a return of the sum which the English nation pays annually for park walls to inclose game, stable walls to separate horses, and garden walls to ripen peaches; and if we could compare this ascertained sum with what it pays for walls to show its art upon.”
“If ever we come to understand that the function of a picture, after all, with respect to mankind, is not merely to be bought, but to be seen, it will follow that a picture which deserves a price deserves a place; and that all paintings which are worth keeping, are worth, also, the rent of so much wall as shall be necessary to show them to the best advantage, and in the least fatiguing way for the spectator.
“It would be interesting if we could obtain a return of the sum which the English nation pays annually for park walls to inclose game, stable walls to separate horses, and garden walls to ripen peaches; and if we could compare this ascertained sum with what it pays for walls to show its art upon.”
I ask you to reprint this, because the fact is that if either Mr. Wornum at the National Gallery, or Mr. Carpenter at the British Museum, had as much well-lighted wall at their disposal as most gentlemen’s gardeners have, they could each furnish the public with art enough to keep them gazing from one year’s end to another’s. Mr. Carpenter has already made a gallant effort with some screens in a dark room; but in the National Gallery, whatever mode of exhibition may be determined upon for the four hundred framed drawings, the great mass of the Turner sketches (about fifteen thousand, withoutcounting mere color memoranda) must lie packed in parcels in tin cases, simply for want of room to show them. It is true that many of these are quite slight, and would be interesting to none but artists. There are, however, upwards of five thousand sketches in pencil outline,[91]which are just as interesting as those now exhibited at Marlborough House; and which might be constantly exhibited, like those, without any harm, if there were only walls to put them on.
I have already occupied much of your space. I do not say too much, considering the importance of the subject, but[92]I must [with more diffidence] ask you to allow me yet leave to reply to the objections you make to two statements [and to one omission] in my Catalogue, as those objections would otherwise diminish its usefulness. I have asserted that in a given drawing (named as one of the chief in the series), Turner’s pencil did not move over the thousandth of an inch without meaning; and you charge this expression with extravagant hyperbole. On the contrary, it is much within the truth, being merely a mathematically accurate description of fairly good execution in either drawing or engraving. It is only necessary to measure a piece of any ordinarily good work to ascertain this. Take, for instance, Finden’s engraving at the 180th page of Rogers’ poems,[93]in which the face of thefigure, from the chin to the top of the brow, occupies just a quarter of an inch, and the space between the upper lip and chin as nearly as possible one-seventeenth of an inch. The whole mouth occupies one-third of this space, say, one-fiftieth of an inch; and within that space both the lips and the much more difficult inner corner of the mouth are perfectly drawn and rounded, with quite successful and sufficiently subtle expression. Any artist will assure you, that in order to draw a mouth as well as this, there must be more than twenty gradations of shade in the touches; that is to say, in this case, gradations changing, with meaning, within less than the thousandth of an inch.
But this is mere child’s play compared to the refinement of any first-rate mechanical work, much more of brush or pencil drawing by a master’s hand. In order at once to furnish you with authoritative evidence on this point, I wrote to Mr. Kingsley, tutor of Sidney-Sussex College, a friend to whom I always have recourse when I want to be precisely right in any matter; for his great knowledge both of mathematics and of natural science is joined, not only with singular powers of delicate experimental manipulation, but with a keen sensitiveness to beauty in art. His answer, in its final statement respecting Turner’s work, is amazing even to me; and will, I should think, be more so to your readers. Observe the successions of measured and tested refinement; here is No. 1: