Arrows of the Chace, vol. 1/2. Ruskin John

8

The passage in the Chronicle ran thus: “The Apollo is but an ideal of the human form; no figure ever moulded of flesh and blood was like it.” With the objection to this criticism we may compare “Modern Painters” (vol. i. p. 27), where the ideal is defined as “the utmost degree of beauty of which the species is capable.” See also vol. ii. p. 99: “The perfect idea of the form and condition in which all the properties of the species are fully developed is called the Ideal of the species;” and “That unfortunate distinctness between Idealism and Realism which leads most people to imagine that the Ideal is opposed to the Real, and therefore false.”

9

This picture of Sir David Wilkie’s was presented to the National Gallery (No. 99) by Sir George Beaumont, in 1826.

10

The bank of cloud in the “Sacrifice of Isaac” is spoken of in “Modern Painters” (vol. i. p. 227, Pt. II., § iii., cap. 3, §7), as “a ropy, tough-looking wreath.” On this the reviewer commented.

11

“We agree,” wrote the Chronicle, “with the writer in almost every word he says about this great artist; and we have no doubt that, when he is gone from among us, his memory will receive the honor due to his living genius.” See also the postscript to the first volume of “Modern Painters” (pp. 422-3), written in June, 1851.

12

Cimabue. The quarter of the town is yet named, from the rejoicing of that day, Borgo Allegri. [The picture thus honored was that of the Virgin, painted for the Church of Santa Maria Novella, where it now hangs in the Rucellai Chapel. “This work was an object of so much admiration to the people, … that it was carried in solemn procession, with the sound of trumpets and other festal demonstrations, from the house of Cimabue to the church, he himself being highly rewarded and honored for it. It is further reported, and may be read in certain records of old painters, that whilst Cimabue was painting this picture in a garden near the gate of San Pietro, King Charles the Elder, of Anjou, passed through Florence, and the authorities of the city, among other marks of respect, conducted him to see the picture of Cimabue. When this work was shown to the king, it had not before been seen by any one; wherefore all the men and women of Florence hastened in great crowds to admire it, making all possible demonstrations of delight. The inhabitants of the neighborhood, rejoicing in this occurrence, ever afterwards called that place Borgo Allegri; and this name it has since retained, although in process of time it became enclosed within the walls of the city.—Vasari, “Lives of Painters.” Bohn’s edition. London, 1850. Vol. i. p. 41. This well-known anecdote may also be found in Jameson’s “Early Italian Painters,” p. 12]. (Original note to the letter: see editor’s preface.)

13

This letter was written in reply to one signed “Matilda Y.,” which had been printed in the Artist and Amateur’s Magazine, p. 265, December, 1843, and which related to the opposite opinions held by different critics of the works of Turner, which were praised by some as “beautiful and profoundly truthful representations of nature,” whilst others declared them to be “executed without end, aim, or principle.” “May not these contradictions,” wrote the correspondent, in the passage alluded to by Mr. Ruskin, “be in a great measure the result of extreme ignorance of art in the great mass of those persons who take upon themselves the office of critics and reviewers? Can any one be a judge of art whose judgment is not founded on an accurate knowledge of nature? It is scarcely possible that a mere knowledge of pictures, however extensive, can qualify a man for the arduous and responsible duties of public criticism of art.”

14

Gustav Friedrich Waagen, Director of the Berlin Gallery from 1832 until his death in 1868. He was the author of various works on art, amongst them one entitled “Works of Art and Artists in England” (London, 1838), which is that alluded to here. The passage quoted concludes a description of his “first attempt to navigate the watery paths,” in a voyage from Hamburg to the London Docks (vol. i. p. 13). His criticism of Turner may be found in the same work (vol. ii. p. 80), where commenting on Turner’s “Fishermen endeavoring to put their fish on board,” then, as now, in the gallery of Bridgewater House (No. 169), and which was painted as a rival to the great sea-storm of Vandevelde, he writes, that “in the truth of clouds and waves” … it is inferior to that picture, compared with which “it appears like a successful piece of scene-painting. The great crowd of amateurs, who ask nothing more of the art, will always far prefer Turner’s picture.” Dr. Waagen revised and re-edited his book in a second, entitled, “Treasures of Art in Great Britain” (1854), in which these passages are repeated with slight verbal alterations (vol. i. p. 3, vol. ii. p. 53). In this work he acknowledges his ignorance of Turner at the time the first was written, and gives a high estimate of his genius. “Buildings,” he writes, “he treats with peculiar felicity, while the sea in its most varied aspects is equally subservient to his magic brush”!! He adds, that but for one deficiency, the want of a sound technical basis, he “should not hesitate to recognize Turner as the greatest landscape painter of all time”! With regard, however, to the above-named picture, it may be remembered that Mr. Ruskin has himself instanced it as one of the marine pictures which Turner spoiled by imitation of Vandevelde (“Pre-Raphaelitism,” p. 45).

15

See the Preface to the second edition of “Modern Painters” (vol. i. p. xix., etc.) Frederick Richard Lee, R.A., died in June, 1879.

16

Abraham Janssens, in his jealousy of Rubens, proposed to him that they should each paint a picture, and submit the rival works to the decision of the public. Mr. Ruskin gives Rubens’ reply, the tenor of which may be found in any life of the artist. See Hasselt’s “Histoire de Rubens” (Brussels, 1840), p. 48, from which Mr. Ruskin quotes; Descamps, vol. i. p. 304; Walpole’s “Anecdotes of Painting,” Bonn’s octavo edition, p. 306.

17

This is a singular instance of the profound ignorance of landscape in which great and intellectual painters of the human form may remain; an ignorance, which commonly renders their remarks on landscape painting nugatory, if not false. [The amazement of the painter is underrated: “You will believe me much nearer heaven upon Mount Cenis than I was before, or shall probably be again for some time. We passed this mountain on Sunday last, and about seven in the morning were near the top of the road over it, on both sides of which the mountain rises to a very great height, yet so high were we in the valley between them that the moon, which was above the horizon of the mountains, appeared at least five times as big as usual, and much more distinctly marked than I ever saw it through some very good telescopes.”—Letter to Edmund Burke, dated Turin, Sept. 24, 1766. Works of James Barry, R.A., 2 vols., quarto (London, 1809), vol. i p 58. He died in 1806].

18

19

Wordsworth. “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection,” i. “Expostulation and Reply.”

20

“Memorials of a Tour in Scotland. 1814. iii. Effusion.”

21

See the Artist and Amateur’s Magazine, p. 248. The article named was written in dualogue, and in the passage alluded to “Palette,” an artist, points out to his companion “Chatworthy,” who represents the general public, that “next to the highest authorities in Art are the pure, natural, untainted, highly educated, and intelligent few” The argument is continued over some pages, but although the Magazine is not now readily accessible to the ordinary reader, it will not be thought necessary to go further into the discussion.

22

Mr. Thomas Wakley, at this