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

23

The references to this and the five passages following are (1) Burns, “The Twa Dogs;” (2) Milton, “Paradise Lost,” vi. 79; (3) Burns, “Death and Doctor Hornbook;” (4) Byron, “Hebrew Melodies,” “Oh! snatched away in beauty’s bloom;” (5) Campbell; and (6) Shelley, “Prometheus Unbound,” Act ii. sc. 1.

24

It will be felt at once that the more serious and higher passages generally suffer most. But Stanfield, little as it may be thought, suffers grievously in the Academy, just as the fine passage from Campbell is ruined by its position between the perfect tenderness of Byron and Shelley. The more vulgar a picture is, the better it bears the Academy.

25

“Although it is in verse that the most consummate skill in composition is to be looked for, and all the artifices of language displayed, yet it is in verse only that we throw off the yoke of the world, and are, as it were, privileged to utter our deepest and holiest feelings. Poetry in this respect may be called the salt of the earth. We express in it, and receive in it, sentiments for which, were it not for this permitted medium, the usages of the world would neither allow utterance nor acceptance.”—Southey’s Colloquies [“Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society.” Colloquy xiv. (vol. ii. p. 399, in Murray’s edition, 1829)]. Such allowance is never made to the painter. In him, inspiration is called insanity—in him, the sacred fire, possession.

26

“This Turner, of whom you have known so little while he was living among you, will one day take his place beside Shakespeare and Verulam, in the annals of the light of England.

“Yes: beside Shakespeare and Verulam, a third star in that central constellation, round which, in the astronomy of intellect, all other stars make their circuit. By Shakespeare, humanity was unsealed to you; by Verulam the principles of nature; and by Turner, her aspect. All these were sent to unlock one of the gates of light, and to unlock it for the first time. But of all the three, though not the greatest, Turner was the most unprecedented in his work. Bacon did what Aristotle had attempted; Shakespeare did perfectly what Æschylus did partially; but none before Turner had lifted the veil from the face of nature; the majesty of the hills and forests had received no interpretation, and the clouds passed unrecorded from the face of the heavens which they adorned, and of the earth to which they ministered,”—“Lectures on Architecture and Painting,” by John Ruskin; published 1854; pp. 180, 181.

27

We have not sufficiently expressed our concurrence in the opinion of her friend, that Turner’s modern works are his greatest. His early ones are nothing but amplifications of what others have done, or hard studies of every-day truth. His later works no one but himself could have conceived: they are the result of the most exalted imagination, acting with the knowledge acquired by means of his former works.

28

Wordsworth. “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.” ii. “The Tables Turned” (1798), being the companion poem to that quoted ante, p. 17. The second line should read, “Close up these barren leaves.”

29

This work related to University co-operation with schemes for middle-class education, and included letters from various authorities, amongst others one from Mr. Hullah on Music. The present letter was addressed to the Rev. F. Temple (now Bishop of Exeter), and was written in reply to a statement of certain points in debate between him and Mr. (now Sir Thomas) Acland. In forwarding it to his opponent, Mr. Temple wrote as follows: “The liberal arts are supreme over their sciences. Instead of the rules being despotic, the great artist usually proves his greatness by rightly setting aside rules; and the great critic is he who, while he knows the rule, can appreciate the ‘law within the law’ which overrides the rule. In no other way does Ruskin so fully show his greatness in criticism as in that fine inconsistency for which he has been so often attacked by men who do not see the real consistency that lies beneath.”

30

In the following year Mr. Ruskin wrote a paper for the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, on “Education in Art” (Transactions, 1858, pp. 311-316), now reprinted in the eleventh volume of Mr. Ruskin’s works, “A Joy for Ever,” p. 185. To this paper the reader of the present letter is referred.

31

“Giotto passed the first ten years of his life, a shepherd-boy, among these hills (of Fiésole); was found by Cimabue, near his native village, drawing one of his sheep upon a smooth stone; was yielded up by his father, ‘a simple person, a laborer of the earth,’ to the guardianship of the painter, who, by his own work, had already made the streets of Florence ring with joy; attended him to Florence, and became his disciple.”—“Giotto and his Works in Padua,” by John Ruskin, 1854, p. 12.

32

This letter was, it appears, originally addressed to an artist, Mr. Williams (of Southampton), and was then printed, some years later, in the number of Nature and Art above referred to.

33

Some words are necessary to explain this and the following letter. In the autumn of 1846 a correspondence was opened in the columns of The Times on the subject of the cleaning and restoration of the national pictures during the previous vacation. Mr. (afterwards Sir Charles) Eastlake was at this time Keeper of the Gallery, though he resigned office soon after this letter was written, partly in consequence of the attacks which had been made upon him. He was blamed, not only for restoring good pictures, but also for buying bad ones, and in particular the purchase of a “libel on Holbein” was quoted against him. The attack was led by the picture-dealer, and at one time artist, Mr. Morris Moore, writing at first under the pseudonym of “Verax,” and afterwards in his own name. He continued his opposition through several years, especially during 1850 and 1852. He also published some pamphlets on the subject, amongst them one entitled “The Revival of Vandalism at the National Gallery, a reply to John Ruskin and others” (London, Ollivier, 1853). The whole discussion may be gathered in all its details from the Parliamentary Report of the Select Committee on the National Gallery in 1853.

34

The “violent attack” alludes to a letter of “Verax,” in The Times of Thursday (not Friday), December 31, 1846, and the “attempted defence” to another letter signed “A. G.” in The Times of January 4, two days (not the day) before Mr. Ruskin wrote the present letter.

35

“The Crucifixion, or Adoration of the Cross,” in the church of San Marco. An engraving of this picture may be found in Mrs. Jameson’s “History of our Lord,” vol. i. p. 189.

36

No. 46 in the National Gallery.

37

“Landscape, with Cattle and Figures—Evening” (No. 53). Since the bequest of the somewhat higher “large Dort” in 1876 (No. 961), it has ceased to be “the large Cuyp.”

38

No. 35 in the National Gallery. This and the two pictures already mentioned were the typical instances of “spoilt pictures,” quoted by “Verax.”

39

“Modern Painters,” vol. i. p. 146.

40

“Philip IV. of Spain, hunting the Wild Boar” (No. 197), purchased in 1846.

41

On this and other collateral subjects the reader is referred to the next letter; to Mr. Ruskin’s evidence before the National Gallery Commission in 1857; and to the Appendix to his Notes on the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House, 1856-7. It is hardly necessary to state that a very large number of the national pictures, especially the Turners, are now preserved under glass. Of the other strictures here pronounced, some are no longer deserved; and it may well be remembered that at the time this letter was written the National Gallery had been founded less than five-and-twenty years.

42

“Lot and his Daughters Leaving Sodom” (No. 193), bequeathed to the gallery in 1844, and “Susannah and the Elders” (No. 196), purchased in the same year.

43

The