NATIONAL GALLERY.REPORT OF COMMISSION.
The publication of the evidence given before the Select Committee on the National Gallery, enables us to return to the subject of our article of December with a more complete knowledge of the facts than we could gather from the unfinished Report and the extracts of evidence, which the press of the day supplied. The whole Blue Book is a valuable document: it contains a very clear index by which references to all details, as well of fact as of opinion, can be readily made, rendering the alarming bulk of the materials very manageable. We can now see what each witness actually said, so that none need complain of partial or mutilated extracts; every passage may be taken with its context. We shall take occasion thereby to correct some portions of evidence, upon which we commented in our former paper, having been misled by the versions in the newspaper reports, from which we took them. To correct a misstatement should be our first task. We were certainly much surprised to find it stated that Sir Charles Eastlake had made such a declaration as this, that he would not hesitate to clean a picture, and “tostrip off the whole of its glazings.” We thought it at the time so improbable that we could not believe such to have been his meaning; and accordingly said, that Sir Charles must have meant coats of varnish, for that we knew him to be too experienced a master of his profession to mean the glazings. We have, since the publication, carefully examined his evidence, and not only do not see the words attributed to him, but collect from his answers to the queries put to him, a general aversion to “cleaning,” and that, in most instances, he opposed subjecting pictures to it, as a dangerous process.
It might, however, be supposed that artists would agree as to the meaning of terms of art. Those on the Commission unacquainted with the processes of painting, must have been very much surprised and perplexed by the very different meanings given to technical terms, and that not by one or two, or by artists of little note, but by nearly all, including the most celebrated. The confusion caused by this non-agreement among the artists, with regard to the terms of their art, the contradictions, and explanations, occupy a very large portion of the Blue Book. Nor does it appear that the Commissioners are able to come to any clear conclusion upon the matter. They labour hard, it is true, and put their questions in every shape, to learn what seems to be simple enough—in fact, whether any paint, put on a picture by the original painter, in a thin transparent manner, has been removed by the cleaning process; but the examined force their examiners into a labyrinth of words, of various and tortuous uses, in which there is all bewilderment, and no master-clue is given them by which they might escape into unobscured ground. Thus, we see in the index the word “glazings” requires four heads of examination—1. Explanation of the process; its susceptibility to injury by cleaning. 2. How far it was used by the ancient masters. 3. Proofs of glazings having been extensively used. 4. Removal by cleaning of the glazings from certain pictures in the Gallery. There is, at least, one certain conclusion to be drawn—that there was, and is, such a thing as glazing. That is generally agreed upon—in fact, is only doubted by the keeper, Mr Uwins, R.A.; and his denial, causing so much astonishment, has raised a storm of contradictory opinions, which have obfuscated the whole artistic atmosphere. The public attention had been drawn to a supposed injury, said to have been inflicted on some of the finest pictures in the National Gallery. The attack, through letters in theTimes, on the trustees, keeper, cleaners, and general system, was so vigorous that the Commission of Enquiry became absolutely necessary, in order either to allay the public alarm or to provide security for the future. The result has been certainly to justify and confirm the alarm, and to offer certain propositions for the better providing for the safety and progressive improvement of our National Gallery. The system, which includes the whole management of the Gallery, is condemned, in unhesitating terms of compliment to those whomadethe system, and who ought to have made a better, or to have refused position in one so bad. Yet we really think it is straining a point of grace to dignify the general mismanagement with the title of “system” at all, for no regular system seems ever to have been pursued from the beginning. As we showed in our former article, (and not from our own surmise, but from the evidence of a parliamentary report), our several Governments were never in earnest with regard to the Fine Arts; and a National Gallery having, by a kind of accident, been forced upon them, they chose trustees as to an honorary office in which there was nothing to do, selected for their title and rank rather than for their taste, knowledge, or ability. The consequences have been sad indeed, and exhibit a catalogue of sins of commission and omission. A National Gallery was founded thirty years ago; what is the great production of these thirty years of peace? It is the old fable of the mountain’s labour. The evidence as to losses sustained by omission to purchase is quite vexatious; there is a long list, to which every one acquainted with the picture world may make additions. We have often and often expressed our astonishment, when we have seen pictures on sale, wanted in the Gallery, and not purchased. To say nothing of the greater schools, the Italian, less understood by collectors of pictures, and for which there is as yet unhappily no sufficient public taste—How many pictures of value, of the schools for which a taste is professed, have been allowed to pass away, and many of them sent out of the country? We allude to pictures of which there could be no doubt, either as to their condition or originality. For instance, how miserably poor is our gallery in the works of the younger Vanderveldt, who may be almost classed as an English painter; yet the country had an opportunity of making a purchase of that exceedingly fine one sold from the collection of Sir Bethel Codrington. How poor are we in the works of Ruysdael, of Hobbima—painters so highly estimated by private collectors. We are not giving a preference to these schools; we only show, that what entirely falls within the taste of all collectors among us the nation disregards. An indifference has been proved. Did not a member of the Government declare, in his place in Parliament, that it was preferable that pictures should rather be in private collections than in a public gallery?
We cannot subscribe to the censure passed on our Prime-Minister, Lord Aberdeen, by a writer in theMorning Post, that he consented to the purchase of two pictures which he never saw. Surely he was justified in his reliance upon the recommendation of the Trustees, especially as he was well aware of the difficulty of obtaining their consent to make any purchases. But the inadequacy of the system is thus admitted.Question5289.—“Your Lordship has probably become aware that a want of definite and well-subdivided responsibility is the main defect of the institution as it exists at present?”—“Yes, I think that where the trustees are numerous, and their attendance is not compulsory, there is great uncertainty; different persons attend on different days, and come with different views and different projects.” But further on we have the real cause of the difficulty exposed, the incompetency of the judges.Q.5319.—“Your Lordship is aware that opportunities have occurred for the purchase of pictures which belonged to Mr Solly, Mr Conyngham, Mr Younge Otley, and various other gentlemen; and some persons regret that we have not availed ourselves of those opportunities. I presume your Lordship conceives it might be desirable that authority should be given to a limited body of trustees to give a positive recommendation in such cases to the Chancellor of the Exchequer?”—“Yes, I think that would be very useful; but at the same time, on all these subjects, people differ very much among those who are generally supposed to understand matters of art exceedingly well—I have never found two agree. In the case of pictures not enjoying public notoriety and celebrity, you are always liable to that: one man will think that he has found something that is invaluable, while others will think that it is good for little or nothing. You are always liable to a difference of opinion, and the selection must be left to those who are admitted to be the best judges. I do not expect to see a tribunal in which there will not often be a great difference of opinion on matters of art.” Although his Lordship is aware that there is in France, and Prussia, and other countries, “one supreme head, not an artist, but a nobleman or gentleman of high attainments in those matters, in whom the country has confidence,” he is also aware of the hornet’s nest that free discussion is: in answer to question 5314, “Yes, I believe so—a sort of minister; but in a country where there is the same freedom of discussion that there is here, I should not envy the person occupying such a position.” It would indeed be a responsibility requiring a strong and firm mind. And “public confidence” is a variable thing, as his Lordship may at the present moment shrewdly suspect; yet we doubt not there would be many candidates for, or at least many having sufficient confidence in themselves to accept, such a position. Such might be found amongst the competent and incompetent. It is not improbable that Mr Morris Moore, fully assured of his own taste and knowledge, would accept it; or if Sidney Smith were living, he would be likely to add that to the catalogue of undertakings to which Lord John Russell would think himself fully equal, even though there would be a chance of being flayed alive by public discussion and averted public confidence. There are men who desperately love to give judgmentex cathedra, whether it be about a Titian or a nation’s safety, and would hardly be restrained though the fate of Sisanes were threatened them, and they were to encounter the chance of being flayed, and their skins made cushions for their successors in the same seat, to remind them of the consequences of an ill judgment. Still we advocate the one supreme head—a minister of the fine arts—and would have him choose his council; nor should we be so unreasonable as to expect even such a one to be a competent judge in all departments. Few, indeed, are so gifted. Sir Robert Peel, who appears from the beginning to have taken great interest in the Gallery, would scarcely have been a competent authority with regard to Italian art; for, if we mistake not, in the public exhibition of his pictures, a few years ago, there were none of any of the Italian schools. We know no man whose general judgment we should so much rely upon as Sir Charles Eastlake, for he is accomplished, not only as a painter, but as a scholar of artistic research, and full of knowledge; but we learn from himself, in his evidence before this Commission, that when he was appointed to the keepership by Sir Robert Peel, he accepted the office on the condition that he was only to be consulted on, and responsible for, the purchase of Italian pictures. A minister of fine arts should certainly be well acquainted with the finest works of art, and they are undoubtedly of the Italian schools—a real knowledge of these, to a great extent, implies a Catholic taste. The possessor of such knowledge is not likely to be blind to the merits of other schools, though his preference for the higher may have limited his search, and in some measure lowered his zeal as a collector. He would, of course, have subordinate officials, who would, for final judgment, refer to him; and we should in no case fear his decision if he were versed in the fundamental principles of art discoverable in the great schools of Italy. There should be purveyors everywhere. But we have seen enough in the pages of the Report to show that such employed purveyors should not be selected from picture-dealers. Any one attached to the Gallery in this capacity should be a sworn agent, bound to renounce all picture-dealing as a trade, and not to accept anything whatever in the shape of commission. We see no reason why he should ever have been in the trade at all, quite sure that there are many gentlemen out of it perfectly qualified to undertake the important duty.
The main object of the Commission being to discover if the charges of injury, from cleaning certain pictures, have any foundation, it may be thought somewhat strange that they scarcely come to a conclusion upon the matter, which, if they had been inclined to trust to their perception, would not have been a difficult task. They tell us that “the preponderance of testimony is to the effect, that the appearance of the pictures has beenrendered less agreeable by the operation of cleaning(the draught of Report says deteriorated)—in some of them, in regard to their general aspect, by removal of the mellow tone which they previously exhibited; in others, from special blemishes, which have become apparent, and which in a former state of the pictures were not perceptible.” In another place we are told, “the weight of evidence varies considerably in respect of the effect produced upon each of the nine pictures which have been lately subjected to the process of cleaning.” We should have thought theweightof evidence had been thepreponderance; the weighing down testimony, the turning the scale for or against a varying weight, as a conclusion of evidence appears rather unintelligible. There never was so great a weight of evidence as the Blue Book itself. Did the Commissioners—admitting that, from the examination of artists, amateurs, and picture-dealers, the only result was “great contrariety of judgment and irreconcilable differences of taste”—go to the pictures and examine for themselves? They did so. They went “in company with several witnesses, and in some instances they had also the advantage of engravings and painted sketches of the pictures, so that the witness could point out in detail the precise grounds upon which his conclusions were founded.” We did expect, when we came upon this passage in the Report, that we should learn what the Commissioners themselves thought after this inspection, especially as they had immediately stated that the object of the inspection was, “in order that every facilitymight be afforded forthe elucidation of these conflictingopinions.” But, no. They avoid throwing any opinion into the scale; so that there is no positive decision; and at this interesting point they suddenly turn aside, make, as it were, a ring, to enjoy the stand-up fight of the conflicting opinions of Mr Morris Moore and Mr Uwins the keeper, as some relief to the discrepancies among themselves. We do not doubt that they did form a judgment in their own minds, and can readily guess it. They are cautious, and avoid pronouncing it. Indeed, the Commissioners seem to have been a little vexed with Mr Morris Moore, and look unpleasantly upon him as a chief accuser who had put into their hands a very disagreeable work, which they do not at all sit easy under. They show their vexation in the Report, p. xi., where, in commenting upon the contradictory evidence of Mr Morris Moore and Mr Uwins, they embody in the Report the opinion of Mr Uwins, who characterises the evidence of Mr M. Moore as “displaying a mass of ignorance and want of intelligence.” And immediately, as if to set aside the evidence of both, we presume by the context as prejudiced, they say—“Your Committee wish to direct attention to theunprejudiced[the italics are ours] opinions of many eminent artists and amateurs.” So when Mr Morris Moore justly complains of insult from the unreproved words used by Mr Farrer, “If the imputation came from a person who I thought would be believed, I should take it up,” the Commissioners, after clearing the room to consider the charge of Mr Moore, that he had been insulted, came to the strange conclusion, not that Mr Farrer’s words were no insult, but that “Mr Moore had himself frequently used language towards others which might reasonably give offence.” Now this is not fair. Offence may be given reasonably, and therefore admissibly; but when it is of a nature to impugn the veracity generally, not as to any particular fact, of a person under examination, as one not to be believed, he has a right to demand protection; and if it be not given, their right of examination ceases. There is a great difference between what may be in the nature of the evidence offensive and what is insulting. If Mr Moore had been equally guilty with Mr Farrer, the Commissioners should, when so guilty, have reproved it; whereas they make this their omission an excuse for not doing plain justice now. Doubtless Mr M. Moore has given great offence by his evidence, but that does not justify Mr Farrer in offering an insult which is not evidence; nor are the Commissioners justified in their comment that Mr Moore had given offence, without marking still more strongly the insult offered by Mr Farrer, still unreproved. We are not acquainted with Mr Moore, nor do we in any way take up his “animosities,” if he has any; but we think towards him the Commissioners did not act quite fairly, nor consistently with the dignity of their position.
We may not unaptly look upon their visit to the National Gallery as an inquest on the bodies of certain old masters—say Claude, Titian, Velasquez—for the charge had been made of positive murder. The decision required—Were they dead, killed, murdered, or still alive and well-looking? A physician once told us an anecdote in point. He, with another physician, had been some time in attendance upon a patient. (We believe the man was a baker). One day they went up-stairs as usual, looked a moment or two at the poor man, then at each other significantly, and walked out of the room. On the stairs they met the wife, and tenderly informed her that she was a widow; and as a widow she properly conducted herself, and saw the physicians depart. It so happened that our friend, some weeks after, turning the corner of a street, came suddenly against the baker—“What! aren’t you dead?” “No,” said the man, “I recovered as soon as you left me.” A little farther on he met the widow that should have been. Perhaps she had less reason to be thankful than her recovered husband. She raised a tumult against the physician, vociferating, “Pretty fellows you must be—much you must know of your business, not to know whether a man be living or dead.” From this, he said, he determined henceforth, on most occasions, to use only dumb show, or ambiguous expressions. The Commissioners seem to have been of this way of thinking. They cannot altogether acquit the irresponsible responsibles—are unwilling to condemn; they adopt, therefore, a figure not unknown in oratory, a mystification under the ambiguity of a varying weight of evidence.[4]
We are, however, now in a position to hear the witnesses speak for themselves. Such a mass of contradictions it will be difficult to find elsewhere among professors of any other art or science. In the multitude of counsellors there may be wisdom, but it is not the less hard to extract it; and certainly one part of the wisdom is sometimes to conceal it.
As “glazing” has been shown to be a fertile source of discrepancies of opinion, and the whole question of the cleaning process so much depends upon its existence or non-existence in certain works, and upon its peculiar liability to injury, it may not be unimportant to examine the testimonies concerning it.
What is the definition of glazing? Sir Charles Eastlake makes it to be, “The passing a dark transparent colour over a lighter colour.” He also draws a distinction between the Italian and Flemish glazing. “The Italian practice is glazing over a solid, light preparation; the Flemish is passing transparent colours over a light ground.” Mr Charteris doubts the propriety of the definition; Sir Charles explains, “I would say that, if a dark transparent colour be passed too thickly, even over a white ground, so as to exclude the light entirely, it becomes opaque; on the other hand, if an opaque colour be passed so thinly over a light ground as to show the light through, it partakes of the nature of glazing. There are pictures by Rubens, in which some of the tints are produced in that way, with opaque colour in a diaphanous state. I was about to state, when you called my attention to the meaning you attach to glazing, that the system of passing a thin opaque colour over its ground is called, in English technical phraseology, ‘scumbling;’ and the passing a strictly transparent colour over its ground is called ‘glazing.’” It may appear very bold in us to question this definition of the President of the Academy; yet we are inclined to do so, because we think our artists have not agreed to adopt it, and because it leaves a common mode of painting without any technical term; but if scumbling may be allowed to express the thin, yet somewhat dry, rubbing in of opaque colour, we may well leave glazing to the conception of it adopted by the Italians, which strikes Sir Charles Eastlake as remarkable. “Now, it is remarkable that the Italians have but one word for both operations—the termvelare(to veil) comprehends both glazing and scumbling.” Nor do we see any sufficient reason for confining glazing to dark over light. We cannot but think it was the practice of the Italian schools, at least some of them, to paint glazingly light over dark. Did not Correggio, especially in his backgrounds, paint out the light, the white ground—if he used always light grounds—with deep greys, not of a uniform tone, and afterwards go over them, sometimes with dark transparent colour, and sometimes semi-transparent, and so on lighter? The practice of Rembrandt seems to want technical terms, if Sir Charles’s definition is to be an authority. That eminent painter of mysterious effect, of “palpable obscure,” certainly often painted glazingly semi-opaque lighter over dark, as well as dark over light. It may be a question of practical art, if it be not as desirable that dark under-painting should come out, or slightly appear through a lighter, as that light should come up through the dark. We never can be brought to believe that a white ground, showing through dark glazings, will imitate all the depths of nature. It was perhaps too much the practice of the Flemish schools, but they were not schools from which we should learn the power of sentiment in colouring. It was an expeditious practice, but it led to a conventional colouring, sacrificing the truth of shadows, with the object (if attained) of setting off, and giving body to the lights. We the rather dwell upon this, because we believe that the Flemish system, and particularly that of Rubens, has had an injurious influence upon modern art. Rubens was a painter of great power, and dared an extravagance of conventionality, which, in weaker hands, becomes a conspicuous fault. Hence a thin, flashy, and flimsy style of painting, unnatural, because unsubstantial;—we say unsubstantial; for, however illuminated, or covered with transparency of light or of shadow, nature is ever substantial. The Italian practice is, therefore, greatly to be preferred.
It is well known that our Gainsborough said, that with black or blue, and asphaltum, he would make a pit as deep as the Inferno; but it was a mistake: with such dark transparency, especially over a light ground, he would make no pit at all, but a hole scarcely the depth of his mall-stick; his arm could reach to the end of it, as against a wall. In the greatest depths of nature, there is a depth of dark below, not of light, over which there is atmosphere. It is this depth that should come up, not light. We are not unaware that any semi-opaque glazing over a darker colour has a tendency to coldness, but it may not be the worse on that account, as the painter has the choice of making his under-darks as warm as he pleases, and his semi-opaque glazing warm too. This, cool, in its various degrees over warm, was the method adopted by both the Poussins: they painted on red ground, and that generally not light, but of deep tone; as it was also pretty much the case with the Bolognese school. Gaspar Poussin, by this method, gave great effect to his cool greens in masses of wood, the red ground imperceptibly giving an under warmth, the general masses being laid in with a body of colour, but semi-transparent, as if chalk, or some transparent body, had been embodied with the colour. In his pictures, cool greys, more or less mixed with ochres, tell with great truth over the red ground. We hope the condemnation passed by the President of the Academy upon this method may not be quite merited. Indeed, the beauty of most of that great, we should say greatest, of landscape-painter’s works, which are yet uninjured by the cleaner, would contradict so strong an assertion, as that they are sure to perish from the cause ascribed; for, as they have survived at least two hundred years, Gaspar Poussin having been born in 1600, (and, it may be worth observing, Claude in the same year), we may fairly presume that the work of time on white lead has already done its worst; and we would almost doubt the effect ascribed to time, when we look at the perfect pictures of the master, which appear as if fresh from the easel, and certainly the white not too transparent. Sir Charles is explaining why he objected to the cleaning certain pictures. “The general reason I have given; but if you were to ask me about those pictures, I should say of the two, Canaletti and the Poussin, that it is extremely injudicious to clean pictures of that kind, because time, even without any assistance from picture-cleaners, is sure to destroy such pictures in the end; they are painted on a dark ground, and every painter knows, that when white lead is thinly spread over a dark colour, it becomes more or less transparent in time: white lead has a tendency to grow transparent. If you were to paint a chess-board with a thin coat of white lead, so as effectually to conceal the black squares, and not suffer it to be touched, in a certain time, longer or shorter, according to the thinness of the paint, the black squares would again become apparent. The white lead has a tendency to grow transparent, and the consequence is, that, when a picture is painted on a dark ground, time does it harm rather than good.” We would, with some hesitation—for we pay great deference to the opinions of Sir C. Eastlake—suggest another cause for this appearance of the chess-board—the tendency of oil to become a varnish, and therefore itself more transparent; and we are inclined to think that, had the experiment been tried with any other colour, ochres, or Naples yellow, the effect would have been the same. Nay, what would be a still better test—had the whole board been covered with black, the white squares, we believe, though concealed for a time, would have appeared through. We also hope and trust that this effect of time on the oil is on the whole rather beneficial than otherwise, and that it is not continuous beyond a certain point. It is almost incredible that either the oil or the white lead, laid on canvass two or three hundred years ago, is now, at the present, and will be in future, to a day of destruction, changing their properties. Then, with regard to Gaspar Poussin, if such were really the case, the lights would be the first to disappear; but, on the contrary, Mr Brown, who cleaned the Dido and Æneas about thirty years ago, a very dark picture, gives another kind of evidence.Q.1128.—“Did you observe in that picture that a very considerable part of the discolouring and blackness arose from internal causes, from an internal alteration in the colours?”—“In some instances; but the general effect of the picture was very much lowered by the heterogeneous mass of oil that was upon it, and the very dark parts did not, of course, come out, as you would imagine they would, from the removal of that: the lighter parts were very brilliant, indeed, but it was always a dark picture.”Q.1130.—“Is there not something peculiar in the ground on which Gaspar and Nicholas Poussin painted their pictures, which rendered them liable to decomposition and discolourment?”—“I think not so much the ground, as the colour which they would put upon the ground, because the ground that you see in those masters, where they have used it to assist them in painting the picture, is an universal colour: in some parts of the picture, the ground is more or less painted on, but all the light parts of Gaspar Poussin’s pictures are very tender.” The differences of opinion with respect to glazing are chiefly among the artists. Picture-cleaners and picture-dealers are in better agreement. Even the artists who differ, perhaps differ more on account of the definition not being very clear, and established in the artists’ vocabulary, than as to the fact. But the evidence of the present keeper, Mr Uwins, is certainly very extraordinary on this, as on every point upon which his examination entered. We showed, in our last paper, how he was present and absent at the cleanings at the same times; how he gave evidence as to the methods adopted by the cleaners in his presence, which the cleaners themselves very flatly contradicted; how he astonished Lord Monteagle by assertions which his lordship denied; how he protested he did not advise, yet did advise; and now we find, with regard to this question of glazing, having contradicted nearly every one else, he turns round, for lack of others, to contradict himself. His first answers about glazing were most plain and unhesitating. Being asked if the Venetian painters did not use glazing, and that, in consequence, their pictures are liable to injury in cleaning, he says, “That is a question that can never be settled, because nobody can prove that they did use glazings.”Q.116.—“Is it your opinion that they did, or that they did not?”—“I believe that the best painters of every school used very little, indeed, if any at all, of what is called glazing. I think it quite a modern quackery, that has nothing to do with the noble works of remote ages in art.”Q.117.—“You consider the theory, as to the Venetian painters having used very delicate glazings in finishing off their pictures, is fallacious?”—“I do not admit those glazings, as they are called; I believe that they sought for freshness and pureness of colour, and depended on their knowledge of colour for the harmony of their picture, and not on putting on what the Romans call ‘la velatura Inglese;’ they wished to obtain the vigour and freshness of nature, or their pictures would not have lasted as they have.”Q.118.—“Will you explain to the Committee why the Romans (I presume you mean the Romans of the present day) call that particular process by the name of ‘la velatura Inglese?’”—“Because the English painters only adopt it.”Q.119.—“The English painters of the modern school?”—“It is only those who adopt it; that is why it is especially called ‘la velatura Inglese.’” This is very childish, to attempt to disprove the practice of the old Roman, or other masters, by the supposed—for it is only supposed—or assumed criticism of modern Romans, who can be no authority upon the practice of modern art in this country. Having found, however, that “velare” and “velatura” are old, not new terms of art, in another examination Mr Uwins comes to his explanation, which is as extraordinary as his first assertion. He contradicts himself, by admitting, that all good painters did use glazings, and even asserts that he never denied it, only in a particular sense. It is in vain that the Committee tell him, they asked not the question in any particular sense; he slips out of the hands of the examiner with wonderful lubricity. It is the hardest thing to bring his comprehension to any sense whatever of the questions put to him; and as to the unfortunate “velatura,” he has examined the dictionary of the Academy of Bologna, and, although he has admitted its meaning by the thing, as in practice they all glazed, yet, not to be vanquished, even by his extracts from his dictionary, he pertinaciously says, “I believe that both these extracts relate to the preparation of the canvass.”
We fear the reader may be weary of this discussion on glazing, but we must beg him to go a little further with us on the subject; it is important, for if there were no glazings, both during the process and final, no damage may have been done, in respect to them, for there could be none to remove—a state of the case which some would fain establish, if possible. The Committee take a great deal of trouble to get the clearest evidence upon the point. We perfectly agree with Mr Morris Moore in his evidence in this matter, and utterly repudiate the idea that the mellow, warm, lucid tones of the old masters have been in any degree given by time. He very appositely quotes the sensible Hogarth, “Time cannot give a picture more union and harmony than has been in the power of a skilful master, with all his rules of art, to do.” Mr Morris Moore denies it, with the examples of Claude and Titian, and quotes amply old authorities. We have immediately referred to Leonardo da Vinci’s treatise on painting in general, a very puzzling book; but we find a passage which shows that not only tone might be given by glazing, but colours changed by it—that is, one colour over another, making a third. He says, “A transparent colour being laid on another colour of a different kind forms a third, partaking of each of the two simples that compose it.” Mr Dyce, R.A., comes to the rescue of the Paul Veronese, one of the recently cleaned pictures, showing from the authority of Boschini, a satirical writer on art, of the seventeenth century, that Paul Veronese did not glaze his draperies. The conclusion would of course be, that in that respect the picture could not have been injured, or that it is not the work of Paul Veronese. But surely the passage from Boschini proves too much; for it asserts with regard to drapery an impossibility, or at best a very unlikely thing, unless glazing be taken into the account. For though Boschini is made to say, that Paul Veronese never glazed his drapery, he is made also to say that “he was accustomed to paint the shadows of drapery with lake, not only of red draperies, but also of yellow, green, and even blue, thus producing an indescribably harmonious effect.” But he had also said, that the painter “put in the local tints of draperies first, painting the blue draperies for the most part in water-colour.” It is, in the first place, most unlikely that he left these draperies in water-colour only; it is more probable that this first painting was entirely gone over, or his lake in shadows would hardly have suited all the colours. We happen to have in our possession a Venetian picture, which shows this Venetian practice of lake, under blue drapery. It is a Palma; the subject, The Dead Christ, The Virgin Mother, Mary Magdalene, and other figures. The foot of Mary the Mother rests on a stone, on which is written Jacobus Palma. He was the pupil of Titian, and is said to have finished a picture left unfinished by Titian. The lake is very visible under the blue, which was evidently put over it; and being rubbed off here and there, the red is very conspicuous. We mention this, merely to show that so far Boschini was right, and that the practice was not confined to Paul Veronese. And is there not presumption in any one, whether painter or not—and Boschini was no painter, or a poor one—to assert positively, that a master who lived a generation before him did not use this or that process of painting, having a choice of all, and skill to use them. Boschini’s aversion was the abuse of varnishes; and it is curious that, among the condemned recipes is theolio d’abezzo, for which there are other authorities besides Armenini, and it is mentioned in the Marciana Manuscript, supposed to have been the varnish of Correggio. Boschini is speaking offoreigners, “forestiere,” not Venetians:—
“O de che strazze se fa cavedalD’ogio d’avezzo, mastice e sandraca,E trementina (per no dir triaca)Robe che illusterave ogni stival.”—Marco Boschini,Vinisto Quinto.
“O de che strazze se fa cavedalD’ogio d’avezzo, mastice e sandraca,E trementina (per no dir triaca)Robe che illusterave ogni stival.”—Marco Boschini,Vinisto Quinto.
“O de che strazze se fa cavedalD’ogio d’avezzo, mastice e sandraca,E trementina (per no dir triaca)Robe che illusterave ogni stival.”—Marco Boschini,Vinisto Quinto.
“O de che strazze se fa cavedal
D’ogio d’avezzo, mastice e sandraca,
E trementina (per no dir triaca)
Robe che illusterave ogni stival.”
—Marco Boschini,Vinisto Quinto.
Mr Dyce is unfortunate upon one occasion in rejecting the evidence of Armenini, “because he describes the practice of another school,” “his own school, the school of Ferrara.” Upon this Mr Morris Moore is somewhat sharp upon him, and quotes Armenini himself, to show that he does not confine himself to any school, but speaks from the “practice and example of the most excellent artists that have existed,” and that he was of Faenza, not Ferrara.
Mrs Merrifield, in her valuable work on the ancient practice of painting, the result of a Government Commission, expresses great confidence in the information she received from a learned and skilful Milanese painter and cleaner, Signor A. He had particularly studied the works of Titian, and describes his practice. If his account be correct, Titian certainly glazed over his lights as well as darks; and, like Paul Veronese, by the account of Boschini, he painted the shadows of blue drapery with lake. “He (Titian) then painted the lights with flesh-colour, and laid by the picture to dry. After five or six months he glazed the flesh withterra rossa, and let it dry. He then painted in the shades transparently (that is without any white in the shadows), using a great deal of asphaltum[5]with them.” “He also said, that in a blue drapery he painted the shades with lake, and then laid on the lights (with white); that these colours were laid on with great body, and, when dry, he took a large brush and spread the biadetto over the whole.” This biadetto was used by Paul Veronese; we suppose it was a blue from copper, and, owing to its liability to turn green, used without oil. Now, if such was the practice of Titian, it was most likely in some degree the practice also of Paul Veronese, who, though younger, was contemporary with Titian. We somewhat enlarge upon this question here, because, by the evidence given, doubts were thrown upon the originality of the “Consecration of St Nicolas,” or to prove that no glazings had been removed.
We shall not pursue this subject further, concluding that, whatever practice is in use now by various artists was known by the ancient masters, and some things more, which are either lost or uncertainly recovered. No one has paid greater attention to this subject, or applied to it more research and discrimination, than Sir Charles Eastlake. We still look for more valuable and decisive information from him, especially with respect to the Italian schools.
We are certainly surprised at the opinions given by artists of eminence as to the condition of the Claude, “The Queen of Sheba;” that Mr Stansfield should confirm his opinion of its being uninjured “from the extremities of the trees next the sky, and the foliage generally,” because those very parts have appeared to our eyes so feeble, so washy, as if at some time or other painted on by another hand than Claude’s: we say the same also, somewhat fearlessly, of the edges of the trees in the small upright Claude. The outlining, too, of the cloud in the Queen of Sheba is of the same feeble handling; and the upper and lower tones of the sky are quite out of agreement. Mr Stansfield and others think time will restore the lost tone and harmony: we cannot comprehend this judgment. If time can give that peculiar warm glow of Claude, we should see that time had done this kind or unkind office on the works of other painters, as cold as that picture is now. There were many who avoided this glow, as unsuited to their subjects; we do not see that time has in this respect converted any of them into Claudes. There is Claude’s imitator, Swannevelt, without the glow; but take Ruysdael, who painted upon an opposite principle—we never see that glow thrown over his pictures. His fresh blue and white skies are still free from that yellow toning of time’s fingers. It comes to this—either Claude painted his peculiar glow, or time did for him. If Time did it for him, Time must have been constrained by his office and nature to do the same thing for others. He did not do so for others, or Claude’s would not be a glow peculiar to him—ergo, Claude did the work, and not time. But time is also supposed to do this ameliorating work very speedily. Mr Stansfield thinks “we all must allow that the Cuyp has recovered its tone.” Will it be allowed? There is, and was after the cleaning of that picture in 1844, a pink colouring in the sky, which put the whole picture out of harmony, which, if painted by Cuyp, to be like his other works, could only have been an under-tone, and by him gone over with another, which must have been at some time or other removed.
How could so skilful a marine painter as Mr Stansfield look accurately at the water from the foreground to the distance in the Claude and think it uninjured? The very forms of the waves, in the second and third distances, are interrupted and faint. An argument has been brought, that, if the sky had been injured, the ropes would have suffered. Besides that it is merely assumed that they have not suffered, that argument is fallacious. We have the authority of a very experienced picture-cleaner, and one well acquainted with pictures and all processes, which tends to a contrary proof. De Burtin, in his treatise on picture-cleaning, says: “A point of the utmost importance, and which never must be lost sight of, is this, that among the glazings there will be found some which, although very transparent and delicate, it is nevertheless very difficult to injure, because they have been laid on the colour when fresh, and have become thoroughly incorporated and united therewith; and, on the contrary, there will be found others, and sometimes not so transparent and delicate, but which will yet be injured very readily, because they stand separate from, and do not adhere to the colour beneath them, that having been almost dry ere they were put on.” Now, supposing that Claude’s glow were—we say not that it was—an after-glaze, the ropes may have been put in on the wet sky. Does any one think that Claude’s skies were painted at one painting, or even two?
Mr Stansfield had used the words “raw and disagreeable;” but being asked if he thought that picture raw and disagreeable when it left Claude’s easel? replies, No. We must in justice say, that he somewhat modifies the expression. “Perhaps I have used a wrong term in saying ‘raw’ and ‘disagreeable,’ for we all paint for time to have some effect upon our pictures.” Notwithstanding Mr Stansfield’s great experience, we more than doubt this fallacy as to time. We know it to be, and to have been, a favourite maxim of many painters of the English school, that time will remedy rawness, and make their works in mellowness what those of the ancient masters were. We utterly disbelieve it, and for the following reasons: It is out of character with the mind of genius purposely to leave a work incomplete. The idea of perfection being in the mind, the hand cannot resist the operation. Then, has time had that effect upon more modern works? We appeal for evidence to the Vernon Gallery. Are the pictures there better than when they were fresh from the easel? Not one, we verily believe, andknowsome to be much worse. This was a notion of Constable’s and his followers, and it has infected the minds of too many. He painted as if he would frost his pictures with white—has time finished them to his conceived perfection? Those who trust to time must, we fear, also trust to the picture-cleaner and picture-toner, against whom there is, rather inconsistently, a considerable outcry. This is a point not requiring a test of long ages. Mr Stansfield himself thinks “The Queen of Sheba” will recover its tone in six months, and that from 1846 to the present time the satisfactory change has taken place in the pictures cleaned.
With regard to Claude’s general yellow tone, there remains yet a question to be asked—Did he take it from nature, or did he add it with a view of improving nature? Quite aware that the question will shock the Naturalists, we still venture it. In the first place, be it observed—and we have noticed it elsewhere in the pages of this Magazine—nature will bear great liberties with regard to colour, without losing her characteristics. Colour may be said, in this sense, to be the poetical language of nature. It is astonishing that any can doubt whether or not this view of nature was taken by the Ancient Masters. It is unfashionable now. To apply this to Claude: In Sir David Brewster’s evidence, we find mention made of “Claude glasses,” some of which he produced. He considered that, looking through these, the tone would be much restored to the eye. “I conceive,” he says, “this (the yellow tone) is proved by the glasses, which I have produced, having got the name of Claude Lorraine glasses from their giving that general tone to nature that characterises all his pictures.” This leads to a slight discussion on the subject of the glasses. Mr B. Wall asks Sir David, “Are you not aware that, about forty-five years ago, those Claude Lorraine glasses were introduced and sold, three, or four, or five together, and they were very much used by tourists who used to see the English Lakes?—were they not of different colours—blue, pink, green, and almost every shade?” “No such name was given to such glasses as you refer to in your question.” Mr B. Wall: “I venture to differ from your high authority, and to think that the glass which you call a Claude Lorraine glass is not the only glass that went by that name; and therefore that the inference which you have drawn, that the yellow one was the proper one to use when you looked at Claude’s pictures, was not correct.” Mr Stirling asks if there is not another thing called a Claude Lorraine glass, “a piece of coloured glass which is used to reduce the landscape, and reflect it like the surface of a mirror?” Sir David says, he never saw it done with coloured glass. The difference between the glass spoken of by Sir David, and that by Mr B. Wall, does not seem very important,—it being that one admits other colours more freely than the other. Mr Wall is not, however, quite correct in limiting the invention to forty-five years ago. We have one in our possession which we know to have been in existence very near a century, and it has always been called a Claude glass. I believe it has been in use, as was the black glass, in the days of the Old Masters. The effect on the natural landscape is curious, and worth recording. The yellow glass is very extraordinary: it wondrously heightens the lights, so that a sky, for instance, in which scarcely an illuminated cloud is seen, looked at through this glass, exhibits great variety of parts. Shadows are deepened, and light strengthened; real colours not lost, but as it were covered with a glaze. We have always been of opinion that Rembrandt used it, his pictures are so like nature seen through that medium. It mostly reduces the blue, making it greenish. There was a little picture of Rembrandt exhibited some years ago at the Institution in Pall-Mall, which presented exactly the effect we speak of. It was a most simple subject—a hilly ground, on the undulating summit of which, on one side, was a village church among trees, on the other a few scattered houses, all dark, against the sky; from the division of the hill, a road very indistinct came down to the foreground, which, to the right, melted off into a dark brook, going into deep shade, where it was lost. The sky was exceedingly luminous—a cloud rising over the village, such as would “drop fatness,” and the whole tone of that greenish-grey, with rich-toned illuminations, which the Claude glass constantly presents to the eye. In a paper of this Magazine of 1847, in which we had occasion to speak of colour, and the habit of the Old Masters in deviating from the common, obvious colouring of nature, we alluded to this Claude Lorraine glass. “This may be exemplified by a dark mirror—and, better still, by a Claude glass, as it is called, by which we look at nature through coloured glasses. We do not the less recognise nature—nay, it is impossible not to be charmed with the difference, and yet not for a moment question the truth. We are not here discussing the propriety of using such glasses—it may be right, or it may be wrong, according to the purpose the painter may have. We only mean to assert, that nature will bear the changes and not offend any sense. The absolute naturalness, then, of the colours of nature, in its strictest and most limited sense, local and aërial, is not so necessary as that the eye cannot be gratified without it. And it follows, that agreeability of colour does not depend upon this strict naturalness.”
We learn from Mrs Merrifield, that Signor A. showed her a black mirror, which had belonged to Bamboccio (Peter Van Laer). “This mirror was bequeathed by Bamboccio to Gaspar Poussin; by the latter to some other painter, until it ultimately came into the hands of Signor A.” It is admitted by Mr Seguier himself, as by other witnesses, that Claude painted thinly, semi-opaque over dark, but this is called “scumbling.” It is, however, in fact, if done with a free hotdry brush, a glaze, and he may have thus toned his pictures. That tone once removed, as in the case of the Sheba, we believe irrecoverable but by such a master-hand as put it on, and possessed of the same pure medium. We fancy we discover in the working that a great deal of the detail of his pictures was painted in this method. To expect that time only will restore that fine glow is worthy the philosopher of Laputa, and his resolution to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. Poor Claude! Professors of the art of painting are far worse off than professors of literature, whose tormentors are but the printer’s devil and the compositor. The poor painter has an endless generation of tormentors. The “Quidlibet audendi” is not his motto; his genius will never be half so daring as the hands of his scrubbers. Let him sit at his easel, and, in his enthusiasm, throw sunshine from his brush, and dream fondly that it will be eternal; a host of cleaners are looking over his shoulder, or lurking in secret, to catch the treasure, and smudge his dream and his work out for ever. And when they have visibly, too visibly, done their worst, old Time, that used to be represented as the “Edax rerum,” the general destroyer, is introduced as a newly-dubbed professor of the art of cleaning and restoring by dirt.
We do not, however, wish to speak disrespectfully of picture-cleaners, or picture-varnishers, or picture-dealers. There are many very skilful and very useful, and, of dealers, honourable and liberal. Nor do we say this without knowledge; yet habit creates boldness, and removes caution. Like the medical profession, cleanership, it is to be feared, must kill before it has learned to cure. But the professors sometimes forget the wholesome rule, “Fiat experimentum in corpore vili.” Even the wise Sir David Brewster confesses to having dabbled in destruction. There is not a man of note in it but must have killed his man; and few are so happy as the wonderful Mr Lance, to make a new one so well that none can tell the difference. Indeed, Mr Lance’s magic brush did a great deal more. A cleaner had wiped out of existence whole members—man and horse; sometimes had left half a horse, and scarcely half a man, and sometimes had ironed them all out together. Mr Lance brought all to life again, without having ever seen one of them; and all so like, that their most familiar acquaintances had never missed them, nor known they had ever been defunct. Yet was his modesty equal to his skill. He never boasted of his performance. Man and horse were revivified, and remounted, and caracoled with the utmost grace and precision before himself and the public, with unbounded applause; and the wonderful restorer was contented to sit quietly in a corner, as if unconscious of his own creations, and deaf to the loudest blast of Fame’s trumpet. If we have wearied our readers with too long discussions upon technicalities, we can now make amends by retiring behind the scenes, first introducing Mr Lance himself, who will be as amusing to others as he has been to us. But there is a prologue to every play; we would not usher in so celebrated a performer without one.
Every one acquainted with the National Gallery knows the Velasquez “Boar-hunt.” It was always a celebrated picture, and henceforth will be more celebrated than ever. In the very Index of the Report it occupies more than a whole page. The famous Erymanthian boar never gave half the sport, though it required a Hercules to kill him. But there is a difference: he was killed, and frightened people after he was dead; this boar was killed, and brought to life again, and pleased every one ever after. It had been hunted in many countries, and would have been hunted in many more, had it not received its Apotheosis from the hand of Sir Robert Peel, and found a place in the galaxy of the National Gallery.
This picture was presented to Lord Cowley by the Court of Spain; and from him came into the hands of Mr Farrer, a dealer in pictures. By him it was sent to Holland, having been refused by our Gallery, and offered to the king, who rejected it. On its return from Holland, Mr Farrer left it in its case, in his front shop, with the direction on it to his Majesty the King of Holland—no direction to Mr Farrer appearing. Mr B. Wall, one of the Commissioners, sees the case, and asks what it contains; is told the Velasquez: has the “impression,” but is not quite certain, that Mr Farrer told him it was going to the King of Holland. Mr B. Wall upon this goes to Sir Robert Peel, and both fear the picture may be lost; and, with the sanction and at the desire of Sir R. Peel, it was purchased for the Gallery. Now, Mr B. Wall was not the only person who saw the case in Mr Farrer’s shop. Mr Morris Moore was one, and, as he says, there were many others. He names two—Mr Coningham and Mr Chambers Hall—to all of whom Mr Farrer, according to the evidence of Mr Morris Moore, told the same tale—namely, “that the Trustees were but just in time to save it from exportation to the King of Holland.” This Mr Farrer stoutly denies, and Mr Morris Moore offers to take his oath to the fact. In the denial, Mr Farrer states, that he may have said he was going to send itabroad, for that he intended to offer it in Paris; but, after a while, speaks rather uncertainly, not knowing exactly where abroad he should have sent it; but it is possible he may have intended again to send it to Holland, under a kind of conviction that the King of Holland would, after all, have it. Then he asserts that the visit from, and conversation with, Mr Morris Moore upon the subject were before, not after, the picture had gone to Holland. Mr Moore, on the other hand, is positive it was after it had returned, because it was then secured for the National Gallery, and Mr Farrer admits it was not so secured till after its return from Holland. This is, as far as we can make it, a plain statement, in abstract, from the evidence. The Commissioners leave these “discrepancies” where they found them; so do we. It is a common saying that truth lies somewhere between two contradictory statements. Wherever it may appear to lie, there appears but little space, on any intermediate ground, upon which it could, by any possibility, stand upright. This little history has seen the picture lodged in the Gallery. We must beg the reader to imagine it not as yet to have been located, that he may learn a little of its antecedents. Lord Cowley had placed the picture in the hands of Mr Thane to keep, where it remained some years. But Mr Lance shall tell the tale. “After a considerable time, Mr Thane, as I heard afterwards, had been commissioned to clean the picture, and reline it. A colourman was employed to reline the picture, a most skilful man, and, in relining it, I understand, he blistered it with hot irons.... When the picture was returned to Mr Thane in this condition, it naturally distressed him very much; he was a very conscientious man, and he became very deeply distressed about it: he saw the picture passing over his bed in procession. After a certain time, he thought it got worse, and that the figure of it was more attenuated; and at length he fancied he saw a skeleton. In fact, the poor man’s mind was very much injured. It was then proposed that he should employ some painter to restore the picture; and three persons were selected for that purpose. Sir David Wilkie, Sir Edwin Landseer, and myself, were mentioned; but it was supposed that neither Sir David Wilkie nor Sir Edwin Landseer would give their time to it, and that probably I might; and, therefore, the picture was placed with me, with a representation that, if I did not do something to it, serious consequences would follow to the cleaner. I undertook it, though I was very much employed at the time; and, to be as short as possible, I painted on this picture. I generally paint very rapidly, and I painted on that occasion as industriously as I could, and was engaged for six weeks upon it. When it was completed, Lord Cowley saw it, never having been aware of the misfortune that had happened to the picture. It was then in Mr Thane’s possession, and remained with him some time afterwards. From that time I saw no more of the picture until it was exhibited in the British Gallery some time afterwards, where it was a very popular picture, and was very much thought of. Since then, I have heard it was sold to the nation; and twice I have seen it in the National Gallery. I saw it only about a week ago, and I then thought it was not in the same condition (indeed, I am certain it is not) as when it was exhibited in the British Gallery formerly, after I had done it.” This is sufficient evidence that the picture has been damaged in cleaning. Let us pursue the story through question and answer.
“Q.5124. What was the state of the picture when it came into your hands? There were portions of the picture entirely gone.—Q.5125. What portions? Whole groups of figures, and there was a portion of the foreground entirely gone also.—Q.5126. Do you mean that celebrated group which is so often copied—the man in a red coat? That is original. I think that any man, with any knowledge of art, will see at once that that is original; and I am only surprised that it has not been seen that other parts are original also.—Q.5127. Which portions of these groups did you chiefly restore? You are very near the mark when you speak of the red coat; it is the group on the right hand; the outlines were entirely gone.—Q.5128. Do you mean to say, that the whole of the paint was removed from that part of the picture? Entirely.—Q.5129. Was the canvass laid bare? Entirely.—Q.5130. What guide had you in repainting those groups? Not any.—Q.5131. Did you paint groups that you yourself imagined and designed? Yes.—Q.5132. Did Lord Cowley not distinguish any difference in the groups? Not any.—Q.5133. What was the extent of paint wanting on that group which you say you repainted on the right—was it a portion as large as a sheet of note-paper? Larger, considerably; the figures themselves are larger than that.—Q.5134. Was it as large as a sheet of foolscap? About that size, I should imagine.—Q.5135. There was a piece of the original paint wanting as large as that? Yes, in the foreground.—Q.5136. It was totally wanting, and the canvass to that extent laid bare—is that so? Yes.—Q.5137. And on that bare canvass you painted the groups of figures we see now? Exactly.—Q.5138. Will you have the goodness to describe to the committee any other portions of the picture where the paint was in a similar or in an analogous state? The whole of the centre of the picture was destroyed, with slight indications here and there of men; there were some men without horses, and some horses without men.—Q.5139. That is in the arena? Yes.—Q.5140. You are speaking of the figures on horseback? Yes: some riders had no horses, and some horses had no riders.”
We must curtail the evidence for want of space. It appears that his brush, taking the number of square feet, went over a great deal more than half. He is sorry to say it is now gone back to “Velasquez mutilated.” But are there not infallible judges to discover all this repainting? “I may mention that, many years ago, when the picture was at the British Gallery, I was invited by a member of the Academy to go and look at it; and I went there; Mr Seguier and Mr Barnard (who was also a picture-cleaner) were present. They said, ‘I know what you have come for; you have come to see the magnificent Velasquez.’ I said, ‘Well, I have;’ and, with the greatest simplicity in the world, I said it gave me a notion that some part had been much repaired and painted upon: upon which Mr Barnard, the keeper of the British Institution, said immediately, ‘No, you are wrong there; we never had a picture so free from repair in our lives.’ I did not think it at all desirable to make any statement,” &c. He hopes there is no engraving of the picture, for the group in the foreground, entirely his, would be detected immediately.
So much for Mr Lance’s doings with this celebrated Boar-hunt, which, whatever part of it may be by Mr Lance, we are very glad to see in our National Gallery, and should have been more glad if they had abstained from cleaning it. But Mr Lance has further amusement for us. That account is the serious play in which he was principal actor. We shall see him again in the entertainment. It has a very excellent title—“Diogenes in search of an Honest Man.” The part of Diogenes, Mr Lance; the point being, the vain search for a time, but discovered at last—in whom? In a negro. This was Mr Diogenes Lance’s satirical discovery. There are countries where the scene must not be exhibited. He shall tell the story. “Q.5230. Have you ever restored any other picture in the ordinary course of your professional practice? During the time I was engaged upon that picture at Mr Thane’s, he had a picture belonging to the Archbishop of York, to which rather an amusing thing occurred.—Q.5231. What was the subject of it? It was a picture of Diogenes in search of an Honest Man, by Rembrandt; a portion of it was much injured. Mr Thane said to me, ‘I wish you would help me out in this difficulty.’ He did not paint himself.—Q.5232. Which Archbishop was it? The Archbishop of York. I said, ‘What am I to do? tell me what you want.’ He said, ‘There’s a deficiency here—what is it?’ I said, ‘It appears to me very much as if a cow’s head had been there.’ He said, ‘It cannot be a cow’s head; for how could a cow stand there?’ I said, ‘That is very true; there is no room for her legs.’ I fancied first one thing, then another: at one time, I fancied it was a tree that was wanting; and at length I said, ‘Well, I will tell you what will do—if you will let me put in a black man grinning, that will do very well, and rather help out the subject.’ He said, ‘Could you put in a black man?’ I said, ‘Yes, in a very short time;’ and in about half an hour I painted in a black man’s head, which was said very much to have improved the picture. Shortly afterwards Mr Harcourt came in, and seeing the picture, he said, ‘Dear me, Mr Thane, how beautifully they have got out this picture! my father will be delighted. We never saw this black man before.’ And that is the extent of my picture-repairing.” Mr Lance is a man of humour. When Mr Harcourt came to examine the picture, did what his namesake Launce in the play said occur to the painter? This is “the blackest news that ever thou heard’st.” But no; both Lances were discreet in their humour, and the one thought like the other—“Thou shalt never get a secret from me but by a parable.” The idea of a black man grinning at the folly of Diogenes, in looking for an honest man among the whites, was a most original piece of humour, worthy the concentrated geniuses of all the Launces that ever were.
All the world knew Mr Lance’s powers as a painter of still life; he has now doubly established his fame, and notwithstanding that his modesty would look shy upon his performances on the Velasquez “The Boar-hunt,” as nobody else has been startled by them, we sincerely hope they will be allowed to remain—that is, as much of them as the cleaners have spared. We hope, also, that no experimentalists in nostrums will be allowed to reiterate the attempt of the fable, and try to “wash his blackamore white.” Let this be the picture’s motto—“Hic niger est, hunc tu——caveto.”
It is to be feared that picture-cleaning has become a necessary evil, as patients who have been long under the hands of empirics must needs have recourse to regular practitioners to preserve even a sickly life. Empirical nostrums must be got out of the constitution, for by a habit of maintenance, however advantageous they may appear at first, they are sure to side with the disease, and kill the patient. There is the first Mr Seguier’s boiled oil, that terrible black dose—must that be allowed to remain? Then comes the question, by what desperate remedies is it to be eradicated? There is the Gaspar Poussin landscape near the injured Claude “Queen of Sheba,” the “Abraham and Isaac:” we remember it a very beautiful clear picture. It is now all obscured; there are large brown patches in the once lucid sky. As so large a proportion of the pictures in the Gallery are suffering under this oil-disease, and seem to petition for a ticket to the hospital, we offer a suggestion made by De Burtin, that experienced and cautious cleaner, who speaks with utter abhorrence of the oiling system. He says that he tried every secret of his art without success; “continuing always my experiments, however, though with little hope, I have at length had the happiness to find in the application of this same oil itself the means of so softening the old oil, that I have afterwards, with spirit of wine, removed both the oils, new and old together, without at all injuring the picture. Although this plan has succeeded equally well with four pictures on which I had occasion to employ it, yet I must not be understood to hold it out as infallible until, from the number of the cases in which it is tried, and the uniformity of its success, it shall earn for itself that title; but, persuaded that the want of other known means will induce connoisseurs to make trial of this one, I feel desirous to put them in possession of all the information that I myself have in regard to it. My four pictures, all painted on panel, were evidently covered with an oil which gave them an aspect alike sad and monotonous, and which seemed to be of many years’ duration. I gave them a coat of linseed oil during the warmest days of summer, renewing once, and even twice a-day, the places on which it seemed to be absorbed. On the twelfth day the oil on one of the pictures was become so softened that it clung to my finger. I then employed good spirit of wine, without any other admixture whatever, to remove all the oil which I had put upon the picture; and the pleasure I experienced was only equalled by my surprise, when I saw the vivacity of the colours restored under my hands as the spirit of wine removed the old oil along with the new. After a few days’ interval, the other three pictures gave me renewed occasion for congratulation by the same results, and with equal success.”
De Burtin has at least the great merit of having no concealments in his practice. And here the Commissioners have done well in recommending that no varnishes be used, the ingredients of which are kept secret. Mr Farrer thinks he is the only person in this country using gum damas. He is mistaken—we have used it many years, and agree with him that it is far less liable to chill than mastic. The recommendation, also, that, before cleaning a picture, an able chemist should be applied to, is a proper precaution, which would, of course, include varnishing. That pictures may not be subject to secret varnishes, the only one we would have kept secret is that mentioned by Mr Niewenhuys, the experimentalising in which brought the indignation of the court of Lilliput on the unfortunate Gulliver. Picture-scourers have been hitherto a ruthless race—with their corrosives they take the life’s blood out of the flesh of works, like true Vampires, and appropriately enough talk ofvampingthem up. Few are as conscientious as Mr Thane, to be persecuted with the “processions” of the skeletons they make. There is an amusing story illustrated by Cruikshank. A lover, anxious for the safety of his sick mistress, goes about seeking physicians; he is gifted, for the occasion, to see over the doors of the faculty the ghosts of the patients they had killed. It is within doors we would have the picture possessor go. The outer shop of the cleaner is enchanting—perhaps it may exhibit a face half of which is cleaned, and half dirty, that, according to Mr Ford’s notion of looking better and worse, customers may take their choice of the dingy or the clean. The connoisseur and collector need have some “Diable Boiteux” to take them unseen into the interior laboratories where the ghosts and skeletons lie concealed, while the Medea’s pot is on the fire, whose boiling is to transfer new flesh to the dry bones, that they may be produceable again, as they often are, novelties of a frightful vigour and unnatural sprightliness, to be reduced to an after-sobriety under a regimen of boiled oil and asphaltum. Even Mr Lance’s work, which was believed to be original, has been obscured and otherwise damaged. Salvator Rosa’s “Mercury and the Woodman,” is as if it had been dipped in “the sooty Acheron.” There is little pleasure in looking at pictures in such a state. Altogether, then, to leave pictures “black, dirty, and in a filthy state,” a condition which Mr Stansfield[6]properly abominates, is to mislead the public, whom to instruct is one great object of a National Gallery. But who is to restore the gem-like lustre when once removed? There should be a cleaning, or rather a preservation committee. Philosophers say, that diamonds are but charcoal; none have, however, succeeded in converting the carbon into diamonds; but it may be possible to convert the diamonds of art into charcoal, or into something worse, “black, dingy, and filthy.”
We scarcely know where to stop with so large a volume as this Report, with its evidence before us. The questions, with their answers, amount to the astonishing number of 10,410! We necessarily leave much matter untouched, very much interesting matter—We would gladly enlarge upon some of the suggestions thrown out in our article on this subject of December, but adequate space in this Magazine may not be allowed. Yet we will refer to one suggestion, because it is now the very time that public attention should be directed to it; we mean the appointment of Professorships of the Fine Arts at our Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Lord Palmerston’s letter to the Chancellor of Cambridge shows that great changes are in contemplation. Such professorships would be a graceful offering to the universities, who may have been a little suspicious of the movement of a commission; and we feel sure, that nothing could be more promotive of the fine arts, the real taste of the country, or more beneficial, as leading the educated to pursuits of a high and noble nature. We will not attempt to discuss the “Removal of the Gallery.” The Blue Book affords details, and plans of site. The appendix is full of valuable information; but it contains matter upon which we feel some alarm. We know there is a scheme, under peculiar favour, to make our National Gallery a Chronological Almanac of Art, than which nothing can be more worthless or more beyond the objects for which we should have a National Gallery at all. What we should collect is a large subject, which we may feel disposed to consider more at large in a future article.
The public will now inquire, what is to be the result of this pains-taking Commission? We are aware that the Chairman repudiates the Report. It is one to which he does not give his assent. We know not the particulars in which he differs from the Report as agreed upon. We could have wished, for the sake of the arts, that there had been no difference.
Of this there can be no doubt, that the system, if such it may be called, is most unsatisfactory. If we would have a National Gallery at all, the public have a right to demand that it shall be one befitting the dignity of the country and the objects proposed by such an establishment, none of which, it is manifest from the entire evidence, can be realised unless the trust be thoroughly revised. Evils to be avoided are now laid bare to sight. If it be true,