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 n.v/'//.i-/ r 'T^M.
 
 ARROWS OF THE CHACE 
 
 BEING 
 
 A COLLECTION OF SCATTERED LETTERS 
 
 PUBLISHED CHIEFLY IN THE DAILY NEWSPAPERS,— 1840-1880 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D, D.C.L.. 
 
 HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND HONORARY FELLOW OF 
 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD, 
 
 AND NOW EDITED BY 
 
 An Oxford Pupil. 
 
 WITH PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Volume I.— Letters on Art and Science. 
 
 GEORGE ALLEN, 
 
 SUNNYSIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT. 
 
 1880. 
 
 [A /I Kig/ifs reserved.'\
 
 "I NEVER WROTE A LETTER IN MY LIFE WHICH ALL THE WORLD 
 ARE NOT WELCOME TO READ IF THEY WILL." 
 
 Fors Clavigera, Letter 59, 1875, P- 3"-
 
 TR 
 
 S7-oA 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE ix 
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE xv 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTERS 
 IN VOLUME I xxii 
 
 LETTERS ON ART: 
 
 L ART CRITICISM AND ART EDUCATION. 
 
 'Modern Painters;' a Reply. 1843 . . 3 
 
 Art Criticism. 1843 14 
 
 The Arts as a Branch of Education. 1857 37 
 
 Art-teaching by Correspondence, i860 . 50 
 
 IL PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS AND THE NA- 
 TIONAL GALLERY. 
 Danger to the National Gallery. 1847 . 53 
 The National Gallery. 1852 . . . .67 
 The British Museum. 1866 . . . 78 
 
 On the Purchase of Pictures. 1880 . . 82 
 
 67S348
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 III. PRE-RAPHAELITISM. 
 
 The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren. 1851 (May 13) 85 
 
 The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren, i 851 (May 30) 92 
 'The Light of the World,' Holman Hunt. 
 
 1854 98 
 
 ' The Awakening Conscience,' Holman Hunt. 
 
 1854 104 
 
 Pre-Raphaelitism in Liverpool. 1858 . . 108 
 Generalization and the Scotch Pre- 
 
 Raphaelites. 1858 no 
 
 IV. TURNER. 
 
 The Turner Bequest. 1856 . . . .117 
 
 [Turner's Sketch-book. 1858 . . 123, note] 
 
 The Turner Bequest and the National 
 Gallery. 1857 124 
 
 The Turner Sketches and Drawings. 1858. 127 
 
 [The Liber Studiorum, 1S58 . . 141, note] 
 
 The Turner Gallery at Kensington. 1859 . 143 
 
 Turner's Drawings. 1876 (July 5) . . , 146 
 
 Turner's Drawings. 1876 (July 19) . . .153 
 
 Copies of Turner's Drawings. 1876 . .154 
 
 [Copies of Turner's Drawings — Extract. 
 1857 154, note] 
 
 [Copy of Turner's Fluelen . . . ibid-l 
 
 'Turners,' false and true, 1871 , . .156
 
 CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Character of Turner. 1857 . . .157 
 [Thornbury's Life of Turner. 1861 . . 158] 
 
 V. PICTURES AND ARTISTS. 
 
 John Leech's Outlines. 1872 . . . .161 
 
 Ernest George's Etchings. 1873 . . .165 
 
 Ti^E Frederick Walker Exhibition. 1876 . 170 
 
 VI. ARCHITECTURE AND RESTORATION. 
 
 Gothic Architecture and the Oxford 
 MusEUiM. 1858 181 
 
 Gothic Architecture and the Oxford 
 Museum. 1859 191 
 
 The Castle Rock (Edinburgh). 1857 (Sept. 14) 214 
 
 Edinburgh Castle. 1857 (Sept. 27) . . . 217 
 
 Castles and Kennels. 1871 (Dec. 22) . . 223 
 
 Verona v. Warwick. 1871 (Dec. 24) . . . 225 
 
 Notre Dame de Paris. 1871 . . . . 227 
 
 Mr, Ruskin's Influence — a Defence. 1872 
 (March 15) ....... . 229 
 
 Mr. Ruskin's Influence — a Rejoinder. 1872 
 (March 21) ....... . 232 
 
 Modern Restorations. 1877 .... 234 
 
 Ribbesford Church. 1877 235 
 
 Circular relating to St. Mark's, Venice. 
 
 1879 237 
 
 [Letters_ relating to St. Mark's, Venice. 
 
 1879 251, note]
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LETTERS ON SCIENCE : 
 
 I. GEOLOGICAL. 
 
 The Conformation of the Alps. 1864 . . 255 
 Concerning Glaciers. 1864 .... 259 
 English versus Alpine Geology. 1864 . . 268 
 Concerning Hydrostatics. 1864 . . . 274 
 James David Forbes : his real greatness. 
 1874 277 
 
 II. MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 On Reflections in Water. 1844 . . . 283 
 On the Reflection of Rainbows. 1861 . . 299 
 A Landslip near Giagnano. 1841 . . . 302 
 
 On the Gentian. 1857 304 
 
 On the Study of Natural History (undated) 305
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 1\ /r Y good Editor insists that this book must have 
 an Author's Preface; and insists further that 
 it shall not contain compliments to him on the editor- 
 ship. I must leave, therefore, any readers who care 
 for the book, and comprehend the trouble that has 
 been spent on it, to pay him their own compliments, 
 as the successive service of his notes may call for 
 them : but my obedience to his order, not in itself 
 easy to me, doubles the difficulty I have in doing 
 what nevertheless, I am resolved to do, — pay, that 
 is to say, several extremely fine compliments to 
 myself, upon the quality of the text. 
 
 For of course I have read none of these letters 
 since they were first printed : of half of them I had 
 forgotten the contents, of some, the existence ; all 
 come fresh to me ; and here in Rouen, where I 
 thought nothing could possibly have kept me from
 
 X author's preface. 
 
 drawing all I could of the remnants of the old 
 town, I find myself, instead, lying in bed in the 
 morning, reading these remnants of my old self, — • 
 and that with much contentment and thankful 
 applause. 
 
 For here are a series of letters ranging over 
 a period of, broadly, forty years of my life ; most 
 of them written hastily, and all in hours snatched 
 from heavier work : and in the entire mass of 
 them there is not a word I wish to change, not 
 a statement I have to retract, and, I believe, few 
 pieces of advice, which the reader will not find it 
 for his good to act upon. 
 
 With which brief preface I am, for my own part, 
 content ; but as it is one of an unusual tenour, and 
 may be thought by some of my friends, and all 
 my foes, more candid than graceful, I permit 
 myself the apologetic egotism of enforcing one or 
 two of the points in which I find these letters so 
 well worth — their author's — reading. 
 
 In the building of a large book, there are always 
 places where an indulged diffuseness weakens the 
 fancy, and prolonged strain subdues the energy : 
 when we have time to say all we wish, we usually 
 wish to say more than enough ; and there are few
 
 author's preface. xi 
 
 subjects we can have the pride of exhausting, with- 
 out wearying the Hstener. But all these letters were 
 written with fully provoked zeal, under strict allow- 
 ance of space and time : they contain the choicest 
 and most needful things I could within narrow 
 limits say, out of many contending to be said ; 
 expressed with deliberate precision ;. and recom- 
 mended by the best art I had in illustration or 
 emphasis. At the time of my life in which most 
 of them were composed, I was fonder of metaphor, 
 and more fertile in simile, than I am now ; and I 
 employed both with franker trust in the reader's 
 intelligence. Carefully chosen, they are always a 
 powerful means of concentration ; and I could then 
 dismiss in six words, " thistledown without seeds, 
 and bubbles without colour," forms of art on which 
 I should now perhaps spend half a page of analytic 
 vituperation ; and represent, with a pleasant accuracy 
 which my best methods of outline and exposition 
 could now no more achieve, the entire system of 
 modern plutocratic policy, under the luckily remem- 
 bered image of the Arabian bridegroom, bewitched 
 with his heels uppermost. 
 
 It is to be remembered also that many of the 
 subjects handled can be more conveniently treated
 
 xii author's preface. 
 
 controversially, than directly ; the answer to a single 
 question may be made clearer than a statement 
 which endeavours to anticipate many ; and the 
 crystalline vigour of a truth is often best seen in 
 the course of its serene collision with a trembling 
 and dissolving fallacy. But there is a deeper reason 
 than any such accidental ones for the quality of 
 this book. Since the letters cost me, as aforesaid, 
 much trouble ; since they interrupted me in 
 pleasant work which was usually liable to take 
 harm by interruption ; and since they were likely 
 almost, in the degree of their force, to be refused 
 by the editors of the adverse journals, I never w^as 
 tempted into writing a word for the public press, 
 unless concerning matters which I had much at 
 heart. And the issue is, therefore, that the two 
 following volumes contain very nearly the indices 
 of everything I have deeply cared for during the 
 last forty years ; while not a few of their political 
 notices relate to events of more profound historical 
 importance than any others that have occurred 
 during the period they cover ; and it has not been 
 an uneventful one. 
 
 Nor have the events been without gravity ; the 
 greater, because they have all been inconclusive.
 
 author's preface. xiii 
 
 Their true conclusions are perhaps nearer than any 
 of us apprehend ; and the part I may be forced to 
 take in them, though I am old, — perhaps I should 
 rather say, because I am old, — will, as far as I can 
 either judge or resolve, be not merely literary. 
 
 Whether I am spared to put into act anything 
 here designed for my country's help, or am shielded 
 by death from the sight of her remediless sorrow, 
 I have already done for her as much service as she 
 has will to receive, by laying before her facts vital 
 to her existence, and unalterable by her power, in 
 words of which not one has been warped by interest 
 nor weakened by fear ; and which are as pure from 
 selfish passion as if they were spoken already out 
 of another world. 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 Rouen, St. Firinin's Day, 1880.
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 OOME words are needed by way of a general note 
 to the present volumes in explanation ot the 
 principles upon which they have been edited. It is, 
 however, first due to the compiler of the Bibliography 
 of Mr. Ruskin's writings,* to state in what measure 
 this book has been prompted and assisted by his 
 previous labours. Already acquainted with some 
 few of the letters which Mr. Ruskin had addressed 
 at various times to the different organs of the daily 
 press, or which had indirectly found their way there, 
 it was not until I came across the Bibliography that I 
 was encouraged to complete and arrange a collection 
 of these scattered portions of his thought. When 
 I had done this, I ventured to submit the whole 
 number of the letters to their author, and to ask 
 
 * "The Bibliography of Ruskin : a bibliographical list, arranged in 
 chronological order, of the published writings of John Ruskin, M.A. 
 (From 1834 to 1879.)" By Richard Heme Shepherd.
 
 xvi EDITORS PREFACE. 
 
 him if, after taking two or three of them as ex- 
 amples of the rest, he would not consider the 
 advisability of himself republishing, if not all, at 
 least a selected few. In reply, he was good enough 
 to put me in communication with his publisher, 
 and to request me to edit any or all of the letters 
 without further reference to him. 
 
 I have, therefore, to point out that except for that 
 request, or rather sanction ; for the preface which he 
 has promised to add after my work upon the volumes 
 is finished ; and for the title which it bears, Mr. 
 Ruskin is in no way responsible for this edition of 
 his letters. I knew, indeed, from the words of ' Fors 
 Clavigera ' which are printed as a motto to the book, 
 that I ran little risk of his disapproval in determining 
 to print, not a selection, but the whole number of 
 letters in question ; and I felt certain that the com- 
 pleteness of the collection would be considered a 
 first essential by most of its readers, who are thus 
 assured that the present volumes contain, with but 
 two exceptions, every letter mentioned in the last 
 edition of the bibliography, and some few more 
 beside, which have been either printed or discovered 
 since its publication. 
 
 The two exceptions are, first, the series of letters on
 
 EDITOR S PREFACE. XVli 
 
 the Lord's Prayer which appeared in the pages of the 
 Contemporary Review last December ; and, secondly, 
 some half-dozen upon 'A Museum or Picture Galler>',' 
 printed in the Art Journal of last June and August. 
 It seemed that both these sets of letters were really 
 more akin to review articles cast in an epistolary 
 form, and would thus find fitter place in a collection 
 of such papers than in the present volumes ; and 
 for the omission of the second set there was a still 
 further reason in the fact that the series is not yet 
 completed.* On the other hand, the recent circular 
 on the proposed interference with St. Mark's, Venice, 
 is included in the first, and one or two other extra- 
 neous matters in the second volume, for reasons which 
 their connection with the letters amongst which they 
 are placed will make sufficiently clear. 
 
 The letters are reprinted word for word, and almost 
 stop for stop, from the newspapers and other pages 
 
 * The letter out of which it took its rise, however, will be found on 
 the 82nd page of the first volume ; and with regard to it, and especially 
 to the mention of Mr. Frith 's picture in it, reference should be made to 
 part of a further letter in the Art Journal of this month. 
 
 " I owe some apology, by the way, to Mr. Frith, for the way I spoke 
 of his picture in my letter to the Leicester committee, not intended for 
 publication, though I never write what I would not allow to be published, 
 and was glad that they asked leave to print it. " {Art jfournal, August 
 1880, where this sentence is further explained.)
 
 XVlll EDITORS PREFACE. 
 
 in which they first appeared. To ensure this accuracy 
 was not an easy matter, and to it there are a few 
 intentional exceptions. A few misprints have been 
 corrected, such as that of ' Fat Bard ' for 'Fort Bard' 
 (vol. i. p. 147); and now and then the punctuation 
 has been changed, as on the 2 5 6th page of the same 
 volume, where a comma, placed in the original print 
 of the letter between the words 'visibly' and 'owing,' 
 quite confused the sentence. To these slight altera- 
 tions may be added others still less important, such 
 as the commencement of a fresh paragraph, or the 
 closing up of an existing one, to suit the composition 
 of the type, which the number of notes rendered un- 
 usually tiresome. The title of a letter, too, is not 
 always that provided it by the newspaper ; in some 
 cases it seemed well to rechristen, in others it was 
 necessary to christen a letter, though the former 
 has never been done where it was at all possible 
 that the existing title (for which reference can always 
 be made to the bibliography) was one given to it 
 by Mr. Ruskin himself. 
 
 The classification of the letters is well enough 
 shown by the tables of contents. The advantages 
 of a topical over a chronological arrangement ap- 
 peared beyond all doubt ; whilst the addition to
 
 editor's preface. xix 
 
 each volume of a chronological list of the letters 
 contained in it, and the further addition to the 
 second volume of a similar list of all the letters 
 contained in the book, and of a full index, will, 
 it is hoped, increase the usefulness of the work. 
 
 The beautiful engraving which forms the frontis- 
 piece of the first volume originally formed that of 
 ' The Oxford Museum.' The plate was but little 
 used in the apparently small edition of that book, 
 and was thus found to be in excellent state for 
 further use here. The woodcut of the chesnut 
 spandril (vol. i. p. 21 2) is copied from one which 
 may also be found in ' The Oxford Museum.' The 
 facsimile of part of one of the letters is not quite 
 satisfactory, the lines being somewhat thicker than 
 they should be, but it answers its present purpose. 
 
 Lastly, the chief difficulty of editing these letters 
 has been in regard to the notes, and lias lain not 
 so much in obtaining the necessary information as 
 in deciding what use to make of it when obtained. 
 The first point was, of course, to put the reader 
 of the present volumes in possession of c\ery fact 
 which woulci have been common knowledge at the 
 time when such and such a letter was written ; but 
 beyond this there were various allusions, which
 
 XX editor's preface. 
 
 might be thought to need explanation ; quotations, 
 the exact reference to which might be convenient ; 
 and so forth. Some notes, therefore, of this cha- 
 racter have been also added, whilst some few which 
 were omitted, either intentionally or by accident, 
 from the body of the work, may be found on refer- 
 ence to the index.* 
 
 The effort to make the book complete has in- 
 duced the notice of slight variations of text in one 
 or two cases, especially in the reprint of the St 
 Mark's Circular. The space occupied by such notes 
 is small, the interest which a few students take 
 in the facts they notice really great, and the ap- 
 pearance of pedantry to some readers is thus risked 
 in order to meet the special wish of others. The 
 same effort will account for the reappearance 
 of one or two really unimportant letters in the 
 Appendix to the second volume, which contains 
 also some few letters the nature of which is rather 
 personal than public. 
 
 I have asked Mr. Ruskin to state in his preface 
 to the book the value he may set upon it in 
 
 * Some of the notes, it will be remarked, are in larger type than 
 the rest ; these are Mr. Ruskin's original notes to the letters as first 
 published, and are in fact part of them ; and they are so printed to 
 distinguish them from the other notes, for which I am responsible.
 
 editor's preface. xxi 
 
 relation to his other and more connected work ; and 
 for the rest, I have only to add that the editing 
 of it has been the pleasant labour of my leisure 
 for more than two years past, and to express my 
 hope that these scattered arrows, some from the 
 bow of 'An Oxford Graduate,' some from that 
 of an Oxford Professor, may not have been vainly 
 winged anew by 
 
 An Oxford Pupil. 
 
 October, 1880.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTE 
 
 Note. — In the second and third columns the bracketed words and figures are v, 
 
 Title of Letter. 
 
 A Landslip near Giagnano . 
 
 Modern Painters : a Reply 
 
 Art Criticism .... 
 
 On Reflections in Water . 
 
 Danger to the National Gallery 
 
 The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren, I. . 
 
 The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren, II. 
 
 The National Gallery 
 
 ' The Light of the World ' 
 
 'The Awakening Conscience' 
 
 The Turner Bequest 
 On the Gentian 
 
 The Turner Bequest and Nat. Gallery 
 The Castle Rock (Edinburgh) 
 The Arts as a Branch of Education 
 Edinburgh Castle 
 The Character of Turner. 
 Pre-Raphaelitism in Liverpool 
 Generalization & Scotch Pre-Raphaelites 
 Gothic Architecture & Oxford Museum, 
 The Turner Sketches and Drawings 
 Turner's Sketch Book (extract) . 
 The Liber Studiorum (extract) . 
 Gothic Architecture AND Oxford Mus., II 
 The Turner Gallery at Kensington 
 Mr. Thornbury's' Life ofTurner' (extract 
 Art Teaching by Correspondence 
 On the Reflection of Rainbows 
 The Conformation of the Alps 
 Concerning Glaciers 
 English versus Alpine Geology 
 Concerning Hydrostatics . 
 
 Where Written. 
 
 Naples 
 [Denmark Hill 
 [Denmark Hill 
 [Denmark Hill 
 [Denmark Hill] 
 Denmark Hill 
 Denmark Hill 
 Heme Hill, Dulw 
 Denmark Hill 
 [Denmark Hill 
 Denmark Hill 
 Denmark Hill 
 [Denmark Hill 
 Dunbar 
 
 Penrith 
 
 Penrith 
 
 [ 
 
 [ 
 
 [ 
 
 [ 
 
 [ 
 
 [ 
 
 [ 
 
 [ 
 
 Denmark Hill 
 
 Lucerne 
 
 Denmark Hill 
 
 [ ] 
 
 Denmark Hill 
 Denmark Hill 
 Denmark Hill 
 Norwich . 
 
 ch
 
 TAINED IN THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 linly conjectured ; luhilst those unbracketed give the actual dating of the letter. 
 
 When Written. 
 
 184I 
 
 Sept. 17, 1843] 
 jer, 1843] . 
 
 , 1844] . 
 
 1847] 
 i;i8si] 
 
 [1851] . 
 
 [1852] . 
 J854] 
 
 [1854] . 
 • [1856] . 
 3 [1857] . 
 I 1857] 
 
 iptember, 1S57 
 o, 1857 
 
 >ptemher [1S57] 
 1S57] . 
 
 y, 1858] . 
 . 1858] 
 1858] • 
 
 iber, 1858] . 
 
 ]i8s8 . 
 
 ] 1858 . 
 
 y 20, 1859 . 
 
 3 [1859] . 
 , 1861 
 
 iber, i860 . 
 ly, 1861 
 .'ovember, 1864 
 31 [1S64] . 
 fov. [1864] . 
 icember [1864] 
 
 Where and when first Published. 
 
 Proceedings of the Ashmolean Society . 
 
 The Weekly Chronicle, Sept. 23, 1843 • 
 
 The Artist and Ainateur s Magazine, 1844 
 
 The Artist and Amateur's Magazine, 1844 
 
 The Times, January 7, 1847 
 
 The Times, May 13, 185 1 
 
 The Times, May 30, 1S51 
 
 The Times, December 29, 1852 . 
 
 The Times, May 15, 1854 
 
 The Times, May 25, 1854 
 
 The Times, October 28, 1S56 
 
 The Athencsum, February 14, 1857 
 
 The Tiines, July 9, 1857 
 
 The Witness (Edinburgh), Sept. 16, 1S57 
 
 'New O.xford Examinations, etc.,' 1858 . 
 
 The IVitness (Edinburgh), Sept. 30, 1857 
 
 Thornbury's Life of Turner. Preface, 1861 
 
 The Liverpool Albion, January 11, 1S58 . 
 
 The Witness (Edinburgh), March 27, 1S58 
 
 'The Oxford Museum,' 1859 
 
 The Literary Gazette, November 13, 1858 
 
 List of Turner's Drawings, Boston, 1874 
 
 List of Turner's Drawings, Boston, 1874 
 
 'The Oxford Museum,' 1859 
 
 The Times, October 21, 1859 
 
 Thornbury's Life of Turner. Ed. 2, Pref 
 
 Nature and Art, December i, 1866 
 
 The London Reine-w, May 16, 186 1 
 
 The Reader, November 12, 1864 
 
 The Reader, November 26, 1864 
 
 The Reader, December 3, 1S64 . 
 
 The Reader, December 10, 1864 
 
 Page. 
 
 302 
 3 
 
 14 
 283 
 
 53 
 
 85 
 
 92 
 
 67 
 
 98 
 104 
 117 
 
 304 
 124 
 214 
 
 37 
 217 
 
 157 
 108 
 no 
 181 
 128 
 123 «. 
 141 ;/. 
 191 
 
 143 
 
 158 
 
 50 
 
 299 
 
 255 
 259 
 268 
 
 274
 
 XXIV 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTER 
 
 Title of Letter. 
 
 The British Museum . 
 
 Copies of Turner's Drawings (extract) 
 
 Notre Dame de Paris 
 
 ' Turners ' False and True 
 
 Castles and Kennels 
 
 Verona v. Warwick . 
 
 Mr. Ruskin's Influence : A Defence 
 
 Mr. Ruskin's Influence: a Rejoinder 
 
 John Leech's Outlines 
 
 Ernest George's Etchings . 
 
 James David Forbes : his real Greatness 
 
 The Frederick Walker Exhibition 
 
 Copies of Turner's Drawings 
 
 Turner's Drawings, I. 
 
 Turner's Drawings, II. 
 
 Modern Restoration 
 
 RiBBESFORD ChURCH . 
 
 St. Mark's Venice— Circular relating to 
 St. Mark's Venice — Letters 
 On the Purchase of Pictures 
 Copy of Turner's ' Fluelen ' 
 The Study of Natural History . 
 
 Where Written. 
 
 Denmark Hill 
 
 [ ... 
 
 [Denmark Hill 
 
 Denmark Hill 
 
 Denmark Hill 
 
 Denmark Hill, S.E. 
 
 [Denmark Hill . 
 
 [Denmark Hill 
 
 [ ... 
 
 [Denmark Hill 
 
 [ ... 
 
 [ ... 
 
 Peterborough 
 
 Brantwood 
 
 Brantwood, Coniston, Lancas 
 
 Venice 
 
 Brantwood, Coniston, LancasI 
 
 [Brantwood 
 
 [Brantwood 
 
 [Brantwood 
 
 London 
 
 [ ] . .
 
 •NTAINED IN THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 XXV 
 
 When Written. 
 
 3 [1866] 
 
 ] 1867 
 ■7 18, 1871] 
 
 5[i87i] 
 
 ;o[i87i] 
 
 or 25 th) December 
 15 [1872] 
 
 21 [1872] 
 
 1872] 
 
 hber, 1873] 
 
 1874J 
 
 .7, 1876] 
 
 23 [1876] 
 
 [1876] 
 ■6 [1876] 
 ^pril, 1877 
 4, 1877 
 r 1879] 
 :r 1879] 
 •'7, 1880] 
 March, 1880 
 :ed . 
 
 1871] 
 
 Where and when first PaBLisHED. 
 
 The Times, January 27, 1866 
 
 List of Turner's Drawings, Boston, 1874 
 
 The Daily Telegraph, January 19, 187 1 . 
 
 The Times, Januai7 24, 187 1 
 
 The Daily Telegraph, December 22, 1S71 
 
 The Daily Telegraph, December 25, 1871 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette, March 16, 1872 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette, March 21, 1872 
 
 The Catalogue to the Exhibition, 1872 
 
 The Architect, December 27, 1873 
 
 ' Rendu's Glaciers of Savoy,' 1874 
 
 The Titnes, January 20, 1876. 
 
 The Ti7nes, April 25, 1876 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. July 5, 1876 
 
 The Daily Telegraph, July 19, 1876 
 
 The Liverpool Daily Post, June 9, 1877 
 
 The Kidderminster Times, July 28, 1877 
 
 See the Circular . 
 
 BirminghajH Daily Mail, Nov. 27, 1879 
 
 Leicester Chronicle, January 31, 1880 
 
 Lithograph copy issued by Mr. Ward, 1880 
 
 Letter to Adam White [unknown]. 
 
 Page. 
 
 78 
 
 154 w. 
 227 
 156 
 223 
 225 
 229 
 232 
 161 
 
 165 
 277 , 
 170 
 
 155 
 146 
 
 153 
 
 234 
 235 
 237 
 251-2 
 82 
 
 I54«. 
 305
 
 LETTERS ON ART. 
 
 I. 
 
 ART CRITICISM AND ART EDUCATION. 
 
 'MODERN PAINTERS'; A REPLY. 1843. 
 
 ART CRITICISM. 1S43. 
 
 THE ARTS AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION. 1S57. 
 
 ART TEACHING BY CORRESPONDENCE. 1S60. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 I. 
 
 ART CRITICISM AND ART EDUCATION. 
 
 From 'The Weekly Chronicle,' September 23, 1843. 
 
 'MODERN PAINTERS'; A REPLY. 
 
 To the Editor of The JVeekly Chronicle.' 
 
 Sir, — I was much gratified by reading in your 
 columns of the 15th* instant a piece of close, 
 candid, and artistical criticism on my work entitled 
 ' Modern Painters.' Serious and well-based criticism 
 is at the present day so rare, and our periodicals 
 are filled so universally with the splenetic jargon 
 or meaningless praise of ignorance, that it is no 
 small pleasure to an author to meet either with 
 praise which he can view with patience, or censure 
 which he can regard with respect. I seldom, 
 therefore, read, and have never for an instant 
 thought of noticing, the ordinary animadversions of 
 the press; but the critique on "Modern Painters" 
 in your pages is evidently the work of a man 
 both of knowledge and feeling ; and is at once 
 so candid and so keen, so honest and so subtle, 
 
 * It should be i6th, the criticism having appeared in the preceding 
 weekly issue.
 
 4 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 that I am desirous of offering a few remarks on 
 the points on which it principally touches — they 
 are of importance to art ; and I feel convinced 
 that the writer is desirous only of elucidating 
 truth, not of upholding a favourite error. With 
 respect first to Caspar's painting of the " Sacrifice 
 of Isaac." It is not on the faith of any single 
 shadow that I have pronounced the time intended 
 to be near noon* — though the shadow of the 
 two figures being very short, and cast from the 
 spectator, is in itself conclusive. The whole system 
 of chiaroscuro of the picture is lateral ; and the 
 light is expressly shown not to come from the 
 distance by its breaking brightly on the bit of rock 
 and waterfall on the left, from which the high 
 copse wood altogether intercepts the rays pro- 
 ceeding from the horizon. There are multitudes of 
 pictures by Caspar with this same effect — leaving 
 no doubt whatever on my mind that they are all 
 manufactured by the same approved recipe, probably 
 given him by Nicholas, but worked out by Caspar 
 
 * See 'Modem Painters,' vol. i. p. 156 (Pt. II. § ii., cap. ii. § 5). 
 ' ' Again, take any important group of trees, I do not care whose, 
 — Claude's, Salvator's, or Poussin's, — witli lateral light (that in the 
 Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, or Caspar's Sacrifice of Isaac, for 
 instance) ; can it be supposed that those murky browns and melancholy 
 greens are representative of the tints of leaves under full noonday 
 sun?" — The picture in question is, it need hardly be said, in the 
 National Gallery (No. 31).
 
 1843] 'MODERN painters'; A REPLY. 5 
 
 with the clumsiness and vulgarity which are inva- 
 riably attendant on the efforts of an inferior mind 
 to realize the ideas of a greater. The Italian 
 masters universally make the horizon the chief light 
 of their picture, whether the effect intended be of 
 noon or evening. Gaspar, to save himself the 
 trouble of graduation, washes his sky half blue and 
 half yellow, and separates the two colours by a line 
 of cloud. In order to get his light conspicuous 
 and clear, he washes the rest of his sky of a dark 
 deep blue, without any thoughts about time of day 
 or elevation of sun, or any such minutiae ; finally, 
 having frequently found the convenience of a black 
 foreground, with a bit of light coming in round the 
 corner, and probably having no conception of the 
 possibility of painting a foreground on any other 
 principle, he naturally falls into the usual method 
 — blackens it all over, touches in a few rays of 
 lateral right, and turns out a very respectable article ; 
 for in such language only should we express the 
 completion of a picture painted throughout on con- 
 ventional principles, without one reference to nature, 
 and without one idea of the painter's own. With 
 respect to Salvator's " Mercury and the Wood- 
 man,"* your critic has not allowed for the effect of 
 
 * See 'Modem Painters,' vol. i. pp. 154-5 (Pt. II. § ii., cap. 2, § 4). 
 The critic of the Chronicle had written that the rocky mountains
 
 6 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 time on its blues. They are now, indeed, sobered 
 and brought down, as is every other colour in the 
 picture, until it is scarcely possible to distinguish 
 any of the details in its darker parts ; but they 
 iiave been pure and clean, and the mountain is 
 absolutely the same colour as the open part of the 
 sky. When I say it is " in full light," I do not 
 mean that it is the highest light of the picture, 
 (for no distant mountain can be so, when com- 
 pared with bright earth or white clouds,) but that 
 no accidental shadow is cast upon it ; that it is 
 under open sky, and so illumined that there must 
 necessarily be a difference in hue between its light 
 and dark sides, at which Salvator has not even 
 hinted. 
 
 Again, with respect to the question of focal dis- 
 tances,* your critic, in common with many very 
 clever people to whom I have spoken on the 
 
 in this picture " are not sky-blue, neither are they near enough for 
 detail of crag to be seen, neither are they in full light, but are quite as 
 indistinct as they would be in nature, and just the colour." The picture 
 is No. 84 in the National Gallery. 
 
 * See 'Modern Painters,' vol. i. p. 184 (Pt. II. § ii., cap. 4, § 6). 
 "Turner introduced a new era in landscape art, by showing that the 
 foreground might be sunk for the distance, and that it was possible to 
 express immediate proximity to the spectator, without giving anything 
 like completeness to the forms of the near objects. This, observe, 
 is not done by slurred or soft lines, (always the sign of vice in art,) 
 but by a decisive imperfection, a firm but partial assertion of form, 
 which the eye feels indeed to be close home to it, and yet cannot
 
 1843] 'MODERN PAINTERS'; A REPLY. 7 
 
 subject, has confused the obscurity of objects which 
 are laterally out of the focal range, with that of 
 objects which are directly out of the focal distance. 
 If all objects in a landscape were in the same plane, 
 they should be represented on the plane of the 
 canvas with equal distinctness, because the eye has 
 no greater lateral range on the canvas than in the 
 landscape, and can only command a point in each. 
 But this point in the landscape may present an 
 intersection of lines belonging to different distances, 
 — as when a branch of a tree, or tuft of grass, cuts 
 against the horizon : and yet these different dis- 
 tances cannot be discerned together : we lose one if 
 we look at the other, so that no painful intersection 
 of lines is ever felt. But on the canvas, as the lines 
 of foreground and of distance are on the same plane, 
 they ivill be seen together whenever they intersect, 
 painfully and distinctly ; and, therefore, unless we 
 make one series, whether near or distant, obscure 
 and indefinite, we shall always represent as visible 
 at once that which the eye can only perceive by 
 two separate acts of seeing. Hold up your finger 
 before this page, six inches from it. If you look at 
 
 rest upon, nor cling to, nor entirely understand, and from which it 
 is driven away of necessity to those parts of distance on which it is 
 intended to repose." To this the critic of the Chronicle had objected, 
 attempting to show that it would result in Nature being "represented 
 with just half the quantity of light and colour that she possesses."
 
 8 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 the edge of your finger, you cannot see the letters ; 
 if you look at the letters, you cannot see the edge 
 of your finger, but as a confused, double, misty 
 line. Hence in painting, you must either take for 
 your subject the finger or the letters ; you cannot 
 paint both distinctly without violation of truth. It 
 is of no consequence how quick the change of the 
 eye may be ; it is not one whit quicker than its 
 change from one part of the horizon to another, 
 nor are the two intersecting distances more visible 
 at the same time than two opposite portions of a 
 landscape to which it passes in succession. When- 
 ever, therefore, in a landscape, we look from the 
 foreground to the distance, the foreground is sub- 
 jected to tivo degrees of indistinctness : the first, 
 that of an object laterally out of the focus of the 
 eye ; and the second, that of an object directly out of 
 the focus of the eye ; being too near to be seen with 
 the focus adapted to the distance. In the picture, 
 when we look from the foreground to the distance, 
 the foreground is subjected only to one degree of 
 indistinctness, that of being out of the lateral range ; 
 for as both the painting of the distance and of the 
 foreground are on the same plane, they are seen 
 together with the same focus. Hence we must 
 supply the second degree of indistinctness by slurring 
 with the brush, or we shall have a severe and
 
 1843] 'MODERN painters'; A REPLY. 9 
 
 painful intersection of near and distant lines, im- 
 possible in nature. Finally, a very false principle 
 is implied by part of what is advanced by your 
 critic — which has led to infinite error in art, and 
 should therefore be instantly combated whenever it 
 were hinted — that the ideal is different from the 
 true. It is, on the contrary, only the perfection of 
 truth. The Apollo is not a false representation of 
 man, but the most perfect representation of all that 
 is constant and essential in man, — free from the 
 accidents and evils which corrupt the truth of his 
 nature.* Supposing we are describing to a naturalist 
 some animal he does not know, and we tell him we 
 saw one with a hump on its back, and another with 
 strange bends in its legs, and another with a long 
 tail, and another with no tail, he will ask us directly, 
 But what is its true form, what is its real form } 
 This truth, this reality, which he requires of us, is 
 the ideal form, that which is hinted at by all the 
 individuals, — aimed at, but not arrived at. But 
 
 * 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."
 
 
 lO LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 never let it be said that, when a painter is defying 
 the principles of nature at every roll of his brush, 
 as I have shown that Caspar does, when, instead 
 of working out the essential characters of specific 
 form, and raising those to their highest degree of 
 nobility and beauty, he is casting all character 
 aside, and carrying out imperfection and accident ; 
 never let it be said, in excuse for such degradation 
 of nature, that it is done in pursuit of the ideal. 
 As well might this be said in defence of the 
 promising sketch of the human form pasted on 
 the wainscoat behind the hope of the family — 
 artist and musician of equal power — in the " Blind 
 Fiddler."* Ideal beauty is the generalization of 
 consummate knowledge, the concentration of perfect 
 truth, — not the abortive vision of ignorance in its 
 study. Nor was there ever yet one conception of 
 the human mind beautiful, but as it was based on 
 truth. Whenever we leave nature, we fall immeasu- 
 rably beneath her. So, again, I find fault with the 
 " ropy wreath " of Gaspar.f not because he chose 
 massy cloud instead of light cloud ; but because 
 he has drawn his massy cloud falsely, making it 
 
 * This picture of Sir David Wilkie's was presented to the National 
 Gallery (No. 99) by Sir George Beaumont, in 1826. 
 
 f 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.
 
 1843] * MODERN PAINTERS ' ; A REPLY. I I 
 
 look tough and powerless, like a chain of Bologna 
 sausages, instead of gifting it with the frangible and 
 elastic vastness of nature's mountain vapour. 
 
 Finally, Sir, why must it be only " when he is 
 gone from us " * that the power of our greatest 
 English landscape painter is to be acknowledged ? 
 It cannot, indeed, be fully understood until the 
 current of years has swept away the minor lights 
 which stand around it, and left it burning alone ; 
 but at least the scoff and the sneer might be lashed 
 into silence, if those only did their duty by whom 
 it is already perceived. And let us not think that 
 our unworthiness has no effect on the work of the 
 master. I could be patient if I thought that no 
 effect was wrought on his noble mind by the cry of 
 the populace ; but, scorn it as he may, and does, it 
 is yet impossible for any human mind to hold on 
 its course, with the same energy and life, through 
 the oppression of a perpetual hissing, as when it is 
 cheered on by the quick sympathy of its fellow- 
 men. It is not in art as in matters of political 
 duty, where the path is clear and the end visible. 
 The springs of feeling may be oppressed or sealed 
 
 * "We agree" (wrote the Chrojikle) "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 memoiy will receive the 
 honour due to his living genius." See also the postscript to the first 
 volume of 'Modern Painters' (pp. 422-3), written in June 1851.
 
 12 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 by the want of an answer in other bosoms, though 
 the sense of principle cannot be blunted except by 
 the individual's ozvn error ; and though the know- 
 ledge of what is right, and the love of what is 
 beautiful, may still support our great painter through 
 the languor of age — and Heaven grant it may for 
 years to come — yet we cannot hope that he will 
 ever cast his spirit upon the canvas with the same 
 freedom and fire as if he felt that the voice of its 
 inspiration was waited for among men, and dwelt 
 upon with devotion. Once, in ruder times, the 
 work of a great painter * was waited for through 
 
 * Cimabue. The quarter of the town is yet named, from 
 the rejoicing of that day, Borgo AUegrlt {Original note 
 to the letter : see editor' s preface.) 
 
 t The picture thus honoured 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 honoured 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 neighbour- 
 hood, rejoicing in this occurrence, ever afterwards called that place Borgo 
 Allegri ; and this name it has since retained, although in process of
 
 1843] 'MODERN painters'; A REPLY. 1 3 
 
 days at his door, and attended to its place of 
 deposition by the enthusiasm of a hundred cities ; 
 and painting rose from that time, a rainbow upon 
 the Seven Hills, and on the cypressed heights of 
 Fiesole, guiding them and lighting them for ever, 
 even in the stillness of their decay. How can we 
 hope that England will ever win for herself such 
 a crown, while the works of her highest intellects 
 are set for the pointing of the finger and the 
 sarcasm of the tongue, and the sole reward for 
 the deep, earnest, holy labour of a devoted life, is 
 the weight of stone upon the trampled grave, where 
 the vain and idle crowd will come to wonder how 
 the brushes are mimicked in the marble above the 
 dust of him who wielded them in vain ? 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient servant, 
 The Author of 'Modern Painters.' 
 
 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.
 
 14 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 From the 'Artist and Amateur's Magazine, ' (edited by i 
 
 E. V. Rippingille,) January 1843, pp. 280 — 287. B 
 
 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 [ To the Editor of the 'Artist and Amateur'' s Magazine.'^ 
 
 Sir, — Anticipating, with much interest, your 
 reply to the candid and earnest inquiries of your 
 unknown correspondent, Matilda Y.,* I am led to 
 hope that you will allow me to have some share 
 with you in the pleasant task of confirming an 
 honest mind in the truth. Subject always to 
 your animadversion and correction, so far as I 
 may seem to you to be led astray by my peculiar 
 love for the works of the artist to whom her letter 
 refers, I yet trust that in most of the remarks I 
 have to make on the points which have perplexed 
 her, I shall be expressing not only your own 
 
 * 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, ^^^ 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 pas- 
 sage 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 know- 
 ledge 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."
 
 1843] ART CRITICISM. 1 5 
 
 opinions, but those of every other accomplished 
 artist who is really acquainted — and which of our 
 English masters is not ? — with the noble system 
 of poetry and philosophy which has been put forth 
 on canvass, during the last forty years, by the 
 great painter who has presented us with the almost 
 unparalleled example of a man winning for him- 
 self the unanimous plaudits of his generation and 
 time, and then casting them away like dust, that 
 he may build his monument — aere perennius. 
 
 Your correspondent herself, in saying that mere 
 knowledge of picturss cannot qualify a man for 
 the office of a critic, has touched the first source 
 of the schisms of the present, and of all time, in 
 questions of pictorial merit. We are overwhelmed 
 with a tribe of critics who are fully imbued with 
 every kind of knowledge which is useful to the 
 picture-dealer, but with none that is important to 
 the artist. They know where a picture has been 
 retouched, but not where it oiigJit to have been ; 
 they know if it has been injured, but not if the 
 injury is to be regretted. They are unquestionable 
 authorities in all matters relating to the panel or 
 the canvass, to the varnish or the vehicle, while 
 they remain in entire ignorance of that which the 
 vehicle conveys. They are well acquainted with the 
 technical qualities of every master's touch : and
 
 1 6 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 when their discrimination fails, plume themselves 
 on indisputable tradition, and point triumphantly 
 to the documents of pictorial genealogy. But they 
 never go quite far enough back ; they stop one 
 step short of the real original ; they reach the 
 human one, but never the Divine. Whatever, under 
 the present system of study, the connoisseur of the 
 gallery may learn or know, there is one thing he 
 does not know, — and that is nature. It is a pitiable 
 thing to hear a man like Dr. Waagen,* about to 
 set the seal of his approbation, or the brand of 
 his reprobation, on all the pictures in our island, 
 expressing his insipid astonishment on his first 
 acquaintance with the sea. " For the first time I 
 understood the truth of their pictures (Backhuysen's 
 and Van de Velde's,) and the refined art with which, 
 by intervening dashes of sunshine, near or at a 
 
 * 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 endeavouring 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
 
 1843] ART CRITICISM. 1 7 
 
 distance, and sJiips to animate the scejie, they produce 
 such a charming variety on the surface of the sea." 
 For the first time ! — -and yet this gallery-bred judge, 
 this discriminator of coloured shreds and canvass 
 patches, who has no idea how ships animate the 
 sea, until — charged with the fates of the Royal 
 Academy — he ventures his invaluable person from 
 Rotterdam to Greenwich, will walk up to the work 
 of a man whose brow is hard with the spray of a 
 hundred storms, and characterize it as " wanting in 
 truth of clouds and waves " ! Alas for Art, while 
 such judges sit enthroned on their apathy to the 
 beautiful, and their ignorance of the true, and with 
 a canopy of canvass between them and the sky, 
 and a wall of tradition, which may not be broken 
 through, concealing from them the horizon, hurl 
 their darkened verdicts against the works of men, 
 
 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' (1S54), 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). 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 1 8 LETTERS ON ART, [1843 
 
 whose night and noon have been wet with the dew 
 of heaven, — dwelling on the deep sea, or wandering 
 among the solitary places of the earth, until they 
 have " made the mountains, waves, and skies a part, 
 of them and of their souls," 
 
 When information so narrow is yet the whole 
 stock in trade of the highest authorities of the 
 day, what are we to expect from the lowest ? 
 Dr, Waagen is a most favourable specimen of the 
 tribe of critics ; a man, we may suppose, impartial, 
 above all national or party prejudice, and intimately 
 acquainted with that half of his subject (the tech- 
 nical half) which is all we can reasonably expect 
 to be known by one who has been trained in the 
 painting-room instead of in the fields. No autho- 
 rity is more incontrovertible in all questions of the 
 genuineness of old pictures. He has at least the 
 merit — not common among those who talk most 
 of the old masters — of knowing what he does 
 admire, and will not fall into the same raptures 
 before an execrable copy as before the original. 
 If, then, v/e find a man of this real judgment in 
 those matters to which his attention has been 
 directed, entirely incapable, owing to his ignorance 
 of nature, of estimating a modern picture, what 
 can we hope from those lower critics who are 
 unacquainted even with those technical characters
 
 1843] ART CRITICISM. 1 9 
 
 which they have opportunities of learning ? What, 
 for instance, are we to anticipate from the sapient 
 lucubrations of the critic — for some years back the 
 disgrace of the pages of ' Blackwood ' — who in one 
 breath displays his knowledge of nature, by styling 
 a painting of a furze bush in the bed of a mountain 
 torrent a specimen of the " high pastoral," and in 
 the next his knowledge of Art, by informing us 
 that Mr, Lee " reminds him of Gainsborough's best 
 manner, but is inferior to him in composition"!* 
 We do not mean to say anything against Mr. Lee ; 
 but can we forbear to smile at the hopeless inno- 
 cence of the man's novitiate, who. could be reminded 
 by them of landscapes powerful enough in colour 
 to take their place beside those of Rembrandt or 
 Rubens ? A little attention will soon convince 
 your correspondent of the utter futility or falsehood 
 of the ordinary critiques of the press ; and there 
 could, I believe, even at present, be little doubt in 
 her mind as to the fitting answer to the question, 
 whether we are to take the opinion of the accom- 
 plished artist or of the common newsmonger, were 
 it not for a misgiving which, be she conscious of it 
 or not, is probably floating in her mind, — whether 
 that can really be great Art which has no influence 
 
 * See the Preface to the second edition of 'Modern Painters' (vol. i. 
 p. xix., etc.) Frederick Richard Lee, R.A., died in June 1S79.
 
 20 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 whatsoever on the multitude, and is appreciable 
 only by the initiated few. And this is the real 
 question of difficulty. It is easy to prove that 
 such and such a critic is v/rong ; but not so, to 
 prove that what everybody dislikes is right. It is 
 fitting to pay respect to Sir Augustus Callcott, but 
 is it so to take his word against all the world ? 
 
 This inquiry requires to be followed with peculiar 
 caution ; for by setting at defiance the judgment of 
 the public, we in some sort may appear to justify 
 that host of petty scribblers, and contemptible 
 painters, who in all time have used the same 
 plea in defence of their rejected works, and have 
 received in consequence merciless chastisement from 
 contemporary and powerful authors or painters, 
 whose reputation was as universal as it was just. 
 " Mes ouvrages," said Rubens to his challenger, 
 Abraham Janssens, " ont ete exposes en Italic, et en 
 Espagne, sans que j'aie re§u la nouvelle de leur con- 
 damnation. Vous n'avez qu'a soumettre les votres 
 a la meme epreuve."" "Je defie," says Boileau, "tous 
 
 * 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 ; 
 Descanips, vol. i. p. 304; Walpole's 'Anecdotes of Painting,' Bohn's 
 octavo edition, p. 306).
 
 1S43] ART CRITICISM. 21 
 
 les amateurs les plus mecontents du public, de me 
 citer un bon livre que le public ait jamais rebute, 
 a moins qu'ils ne mettent en ce rang leur ecrits, de 
 la bonte desquels eux seuls sont persuades." 
 
 Now the fact is, that the whole difficulty of the 
 question is caused by the ambiguity of this word — 
 the "public." Whom does it include ? People con- 
 tinually forget that there is a separate public for 
 every picture, and for every book. Appealed to 
 with reference to any particular work, the public is 
 that class of persons who possess the knowledge 
 which it presupposes, and the faculties to which it 
 is addressed. With reference to a new edition of 
 Newton's Principia, the " public" means little more 
 than the Royal Society. With reference to one of 
 Wordsworth's poems, it means all who have hearts. 
 With reference to one of Moore's, all who have 
 passions. With reference to the works of Hogarth, 
 it means those who have worldly knowledge, — to 
 the works of Giotto, those who have religious faith. 
 Each work must be tested exclusively by the fiat 
 of the particular public to whom it is addressed. 
 We will listen to no comments on Newton from 
 people who have no mathematical knowledge ; to 
 none on Wordsworth from those who have no 
 hearts ; to none on Giotto from those who have 
 no religion. Therefore, when we have to form a
 
 22 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 judgment of any new work, the question " What do 
 the public say to it ?" is indeed of vital importance ; 
 but we must always inquire, first, who are its public? 
 We must not submit a treatise on moral philosophy 
 to a conclave o'f horse-jockeys, nor a work of deep 
 artistical research to the writers for the Art Union. 
 
 The public, then, we repeat, when referred to 
 
 with respect to a particular work, consist only of 
 
 those who have knowledge of its subject, and are 
 
 possessed of the faculties to which it is addressed. 
 
 If it fail of touching tJicse, the work is a bad one ; 
 
 ..but it in no degree militates against it that it is 
 rejected by those to whom it does not appeal. To 
 whom, then, let us ask, and to wJtat public do the 
 works of Turner appeal } To those only, we reply, 
 who have profound and disciplined acquaintance 
 
 * with nature, ardent poetical feeling, and keen eye 
 for colour (a faculty far more rare than an ear for 
 music). They are deeply-toned poems, intended for 
 all who love poetry, but not for those who delight 
 in mimickries of wine-glasses and nutshells. They 
 are deep treatises on natural phenomena, intended 
 for all who are acquainted with such phenomena, 
 but not for those who, like the painter Barry, are 
 amazed at finding the realities of the Alps grander 
 than the imaginations of Salvator, and assert that 
 they saw the moon from the Mont Cenis four times
 
 1843] ART CRITICISM. 23 
 
 as big as usual, " from being so much nearer to 
 it " ! * And they are studied melodies of exquisite 
 colour, intended for those who have perception of 
 colour ; not for those who fancy that all trees are 
 Prussian green. Then comes the question, Were 
 the works of Turner ever rejected by any person 
 possessing even partially these qualifications .'' We 
 answer boldly, never. On the contrary, they are 
 universally hailed by this public with an enthusiasm 
 not undeserving in appearance — at least to those 
 who are debarred from sharing in it, of its usual 
 soubriquet — the Turner mania. 
 
 Is, then, the number of those who are acquainted 
 with the truth of nature so limited .-' So it has 
 
 * 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. t 
 
 f 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 veiy good telescopes." — Letter to Edmund Burke, dated Turin, 
 Sept. 24, 1766. Works of James BaiTy, R.A., 2 vols., quarto (London, 
 1809), vol. i. p. 58. He died in 1806.
 
 24 LETTERS ON ART.. [1843 
 
 been asserted by one who knew much both of 
 Art and Nature, and both were glorious in his 
 country.* 
 
 *' in. Oi) fxivToi eladaaiv avdpaTtoL ovofid^eiv ovrats. 
 2Q. Horepov, &> iTnria, ol fldores fj 01 firj elhores ; 
 in. Ol TvoXKoL 
 
 20. Eicri S' ovTol 01 ilboTes rakrides, ol ttoWoi ; 
 in. Oi a^ra." 
 
 HiPPiAS Major. 
 
 Now, we are not inclined to go quite so far as 
 this. There are many subjects with respect to which 
 the multitude are cognizant of truth, or at least of 
 souie truth ; and those subjects may be generally 
 characterized as everything which materially con- 
 cerns themselves or their interests. The public are 
 acquainted with the nature of their own passions, 
 and the point of their own calamities, — can laugh 
 at the weakness they feel, ancf weep at the miseries 
 
 * Plato. — " Hippias. Men do not commonly say so. 
 
 Socrates. Who do not say so, — those who 
 
 know, or those who do not 
 
 know ? 
 Hippias. The multitude. 
 Socrates. Are then the multitude acquainted 
 
 with truth ? 
 Hippias. Certainly not." 
 
 The answer is put into the mouth of the sophist; but 
 put as an established fact, which he cannot possibly deny.t 
 
 t Plato : Hippias Major, 284 E. Steph.
 
 lS43] ART CRITICISM. 2$ 
 
 they have experienced ; but all the sagacity they 
 possess, be it how great soever, will not enable them 
 to judge of likeness to that which they have never 
 seen, nor to acknowledge principles on which they 
 have never reflected. Of a comedy or a drama, an 
 epigram or a ballad, they are judges from whom 
 there is no appeal ; but not of the representation of 
 facts which they have never examined, of beauties 
 which they have never loved. It is not sufficient 
 that the facts or the features of nature be around 
 us, while they are not within us. We may walk 
 day by day through grove and meadow, and 
 scarcely know more concerning them than is known 
 by bird and beast, that the one has shade for the 
 head, and the other softness for the foot. It is not 
 true that " the eye, it cannot choose but see," unless 
 we obey the following condition, and go forth " in 
 a wise passiveness," * free from that plague of 
 our own hearts which brings the shadow of our- 
 selves, and the tumult of our petty interests and 
 impatient passions, across the light and calm of 
 Nature. We do not sit at the feet of our mistress 
 to listen to her teaching ; but we seek her only to 
 drag from her that which may suit our purpose, 
 to see in her the confirmation of a theory, or find 
 
 * Wordsworth. ' Poems of Sentiment and Reflection, ' i. "Expostu- 
 lation and Reply."
 
 26 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 in her fuel for our pride. Nay, do we often go 
 
 to her even thus ? Have we not rather cause to 
 
 take to ourselves the full weight of Wordsworth's 
 
 noble appeal — 
 
 " Vain pleasures of luxurious life ! 
 For ever with yourselves at strife, 
 Through town and country, both deranged 
 By affections interchanged, 
 And all the perishable gauds 
 That heaven-deserted man applauds. 
 When will your hapless patrons learn 
 To watch and ponder, to discern 
 ■ The freshness, the eternal youth 
 
 Of admiration, sprung from truth, 
 From beauty infinitely growing 
 Upon a mind with love o'erflowing : 
 To sound the depths of every art 
 That seeks its wisdom through the heart ? " * 
 
 When ivill they learn it .'' Hardly, we fear, in this 
 age of steam and iron, luxury and selfishness. We 
 grow more and more artificial day by day, and see 
 less and less worthiness in those pleasures which 
 bring with them no morbid excitement, in that 
 knowledge which affords us no opportunity of dis- 
 play. Your correspondent may rest assured that 
 those who do not care for nature, who do not love 
 her, cannot see her. A few of her phenomena lie 
 on the surface ; the nobler number lie deep, and 
 are the reward of watching and of thought. The 
 
 * 'Memorials of a Tour in Scotland. 1814. iii. Effusion.'
 
 1843] ART CRITICISM. 27 
 
 artist may choose ivJiich he will render : no human 
 atr can render both. If he paint the surface, he 
 will catch the crowd ; if he paint the depth, he 
 will be admired only — but with how deep and 
 fervent admiration, none but they who feel it can 
 tell — by the thoughtful and observant few. 
 
 There are some admirable observations on this 
 subject in your December number ("An Evening's 
 Gossip with a Painter " *) ; but there is one circum- 
 stance with respect to the works of Turner which 
 yet further limits the number of their admirers. 
 They are not prosaic statements of the phenomena 
 of nature, — they are statements of them under the 
 influence of ardent feeling ; they are, in a word, 
 the most fervent and real poetry which the English 
 nation is at present producing. Now, not only is 
 this proverbially an age in which poetry is little 
 cared for ; but even with those who have most love 
 of it, and most need of it, it requires, especially 
 if high and philosophical, an attuned, quiet, and 
 exalted frame of mind for its enjoyment ; and if 
 
 * 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, 
 natui-al, 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.
 
 2 8 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 dragged into the midst of the noisy interests of 
 every-day Hfe, may easily be made ridicidous or 
 offensive. Wordsworth recited, by Mr. Wakley, in 
 the House of Commons, in the middle of a financial 
 debate, would sound, in all probability, very like 
 Mr. Wakley's * own verses. Wordsworth, read in 
 the stillness of a mountain hollow, has the force 
 of the mountain waters. What would be the effect 
 of a passage of Milton recited in the middle of a 
 pantomime, or of a dreamy stanza of Shelley upon 
 the Stock Exchange ? Are we to judge of the 
 nightingale by hearing it sing in broad daylight in 
 Cheapside ? For just such a judgment do we form 
 of Turner by standing before his pictures in the 
 Royal Academy. It is a strange thing that the 
 public never seem to suspect that there may be a 
 poetry in painting, to meet which, some preparation 
 of sympathy, some harmony of circumstance, is 
 required ; and that it is just as impossible to see 
 half a dozen great pictures as to read half a dozen 
 great poems at the same time, if their tendencies 
 or their tones of feeling be contrary or discordant. 
 
 * Mr. Thomas Wakky, at this time M. P. for Finsbury, and coroner 
 for Middlesex. He was the founder of the Lancet, and took a deep 
 interest in medicine, which he at one time practised. I do not find, 
 however, that he published any volume of poems, though he may well 
 have been the author, as the letter seems to imply, of some occasional 
 verses. He died in 1862.
 
 1843] ART CRITICISM. 29 
 
 Let us imagine what would be the effect on the 
 mind of any man of feehng, to whom an eager 
 friend, desirous of impressing upon him the merit 
 of different poets, should read successively, and 
 without a pause, the following passages, in which 
 lie something of the prevailing character of the 
 works of six of our greatest modern artists : — 
 
 Landseer. 
 
 " His hair, his size, his mouth, his higs, 
 Show'd he was nana o' Scotland's dougs, 
 But whalpit some place far abroad 
 Whar sailors gang to fish for cod."* 
 
 Martin. 
 
 " Far in the horizon to the north appear'd, 
 From skirt to skirt, a fiery region, stretched 
 In battailous aspect, and nearer view 
 Bristled with upright beams innumerable 
 Of rigid spears, and helmets throng'd, and shields 
 Various, with boastful argument portray'd." 
 
 WiLKIE. 
 
 " The risin' moon began to glowr 
 The distant Cumnock hills out owre ; 
 To count her horns, wi' a' my pow'r, 
 
 I set mysel' ; 
 But whether she had three or fowr, 
 I couldna tell." 
 
 * The references to this and the five passages following are 
 (0 Burns, 'The Twa Dogs' ; (2) Milton, 'Paradise Los!,' 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. i.
 
 30 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 Eastlake. 
 
 "And thou, who tell'st me to forget, 
 Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet." 
 
 Stanfield. 
 
 "Ye mariners of England, 
 Who guard our native seas, 
 Whose flag has braved a thousand years 
 The battle and the breeze." 
 
 Turner. 
 
 " The point of one white star is quivering still, 
 Deep in the orange light of widening dawn, 
 Beyond the purple mountains. Through a chasm 
 Of wind-divided mist the darker lake 
 Reflects it, now it fades : it gleams again, 
 As the waves fall, and as the burning threads 
 Of woven cloud unravel in pale air, 
 'Tis lost ! and through yon peaks of cloudlike snow 
 The roseate sunlight quivers." 
 
 Precisely to such advantage as the above pas- 
 sages, so placed,* appear, are the works of any 
 painter of mind seen in the Academy. None 
 suffer more than Turner's, which are not only 
 interfered with by the prosaic pictures around 
 
 * 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.
 
 1843] ART CRITICISM. 3 1 
 
 them, but neutralize each other. Two works of 
 his, side by side, destroy each other to a dead 
 certainty, for each is so vast, so complete, so 
 demandant of every power, so sufficient for every 
 desire of the mind, that it is utterly impossible 
 for two to be comprehended together. Each must 
 have the undivided intellect, and each is destroyed 
 by the attraction of the other ; and it is the chief 
 power and might of these pictures, that they are 
 works for the closet and the heart — works to be 
 dwelt upon separately and devotedly, and then 
 chiefly when the mind is in its highest tone, and 
 desirous of a beauty which may be food for its 
 immortality. It is the very stamp and essence of 
 the purest poetry, that it can only be so met 
 and understood ; and that the clash of common 
 interests, and the roar of the selfish world, must 
 be hushed about the heart, before it can hear the 
 still, small voice, wherein rests the power com- 
 municated from the Holiest* 
 
 * "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
 
 32 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 Can, then, — will be, if I mistake not, the final 
 inquiry of your correspondent, — can, then, we ordi- 
 nary mortals, — can I, who am not Sir Augustus 
 Callcott, nor Sir Francis Chantrey, ever derive 
 any pleasure from works of this lofty character ? 
 Heaven forbid, we reply, that it should be other- 
 wise. NotJiing more is necessary for the appre- 
 ciation of them, than that which is necessary for 
 the appreciation of any great writer, — the quiet 
 study of him with an humble heart. There are, 
 indeed, technical qualities, difficulties overcome, 
 and principles developed, which are reserved for 
 the enjoyment of the artist ; but these do not 
 add to the influence of the picture. On the 
 contrary, we must break through its charm, before 
 we can comprehend its means, and " murder to 
 dissect." The picture is intended, not for artists 
 alone, but for all who love what it portrays ; and 
 so little doubt have we of the capacity of all to 
 understand the works in question, that we have 
 the most confident expectation, within the next 
 
 world would neither allow utterance nor acceptance." — 
 Southefs Colloquies.* Such allowance is never made to 
 the painter. In him, inspiration is called insanity, — in him, 
 the sacred fire, possession. 
 
 * ' Sir Thomas More ; or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects 
 of Society.' Colloquy xiv. (vol. ii. p. 399, in Murray's edition, 1829). 
 
 J
 
 i843] ART CRITICISM. 33 
 
 fifty years, of seeing the name of Turner placed 
 on the same impregnable height with that of 
 Shakspeare.* Both have committed errors of taste 
 and judgment. In both it is, or will be, heresy 
 even to feel those errors, so entirely are they 
 over-balanced by the gigantic powers of whose 
 impetuosity they are the result. So soon as the 
 public are convinced, by the maintained testimony 
 of high authority, that Turner is worth under- 
 standing, they will try to understand him ; and 
 if they try, they can. Nor are they, now, as is 
 commonly thought, despised or defied by him. He 
 has too much respect for them to endeavour to 
 please them by falsehood. He will not win for 
 himself a hearing by the betrayal of his message. 
 
 * "This Turner, of whom you have known so little while he was 
 living among you, will one clay take his place beside Shakspeare 
 and Verulam, in the annals of the light of England. 
 
 ' ' Yes : beside Shakspeare and Verulam, a third star in that central 
 constellation, round which, in the astronomy of intellect, all other stars 
 make their circuit. By Shakspeare, humanity was unsealed to you ; by 
 Verulam the priticiples 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 ; 
 Shakspeare did perfectly what yEschylus 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 1S54 ; pp. 180-81.) 
 
 VOL. I. • 3
 
 34 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 Finally, then, we would recommend your cor- 
 respondent, first, to divest herself of every atom 
 of lingering respect or regard for the common 
 criticism of the press, and to hold fast by the 
 authority of Callcott, Chantrey, Landseer, and 
 Stanfield ; and this, not because we would have 
 her slavishly subject to any authority but that ot 
 her own eyes and reason, but because we would 
 not have her blown about with every wind of 
 doctrine, before she has convinced her reason, or 
 learned to use her eyes. And if she can draw at 
 all, let her make careful studies of any natural 
 objects that may happen to come in her way, — 
 sticks, leaves, or stones, — and of distant atmo- 
 spheric effects on groups of objects ; not for the 
 sake of the drawing itself, but for the sake of the 
 powers of attention and accurate observation which 
 thus only can be cultivated. And let her make 
 the study, not thinking of this artist or of that ; 
 not conjecturing what Harding would have done, 
 or Stanfield, or Callcott, with her subject ; not 
 trying to draw in a bold style, or a free style, or 
 any other style ; but drawing all she sees, as far 
 as may be in her power, earnestly, faithfully, 
 unsclectingly ; and, which is perhaps the more 
 difficult task of the two, not drawing what she 
 does not see. Oh, if people did but know how
 
 1843] ART CRITICISM. 35 
 
 many lines nature suggests without showing, what 
 different art should we have ! And let her never 
 be discouraged by ill success. She will seldom 
 have gained more knowledge than when she most 
 feels her failure. Let her use every opportunity 
 of examining the works of Turner ; let her try to 
 copy them, then try to copy some one else's, and 
 observe which presents most of that kind of 
 difficulty which she found in copying nature. 
 Let her, if possible, extend her acquaintance with 
 wild natural scenery of every kind and character, 
 endeavouring in each species of scenery to dis- 
 tinguish those features which are expressive and 
 harmonious from those which are unaffecting or 
 incongruous ; and after a year or two of such 
 discipline as this, let her judge for herself No 
 authority need then, or can then, be very in- 
 fluential with her. Her own pleasure in works 
 of true greatness * will be too real, too instinctive, 
 to be persuaded, or laughed out of her. We 
 
 * We have not sufificiently expressed our concurrence 
 in the opinion of her friend, that Turner's modern works 
 are his greatest. His early ones are nothing but ampli- 
 fications 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 fueans 
 of his former works.
 
 36 LETTERS ON ART. [1843 
 
 bid her, therefore, heartily good-speed, with this 
 final warning : — Let her beware, in going to 
 nature, of taking with her the commonplace 
 dogmas or dicta of Art. Let her not look for 
 what is like Titian, or like Claude, for composed 
 form, or arranged chiaroscuro ; but believe that 
 everything which God has made is beautiful, and 
 that everything which nature teaches is true. Let 
 her beware, above everything, of that wicked pride 
 which makes man think he can dignify God's 
 glorious creations, or exalt the majesty of his 
 universe. Let her be humble, we repeat, and 
 earnest. Truth was never sealed, if so sought. 
 And once more we bid her good-speed in the 
 words of our poet-moralist : — 
 
 " Enough of Science and of Art : 
 Seal up these barren leaves ; 
 Come forth, and bring with you a heart 
 That watches, and receives."* 
 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient humble servant, 
 The Author of ' Modern Painters.' 
 
 * Wordsworth. 'Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.' ii. "The 
 Tables Turned" (1798), being the companion poem to that quoted ante, 
 p. 25. The second line should read, "Close up these barren leaves."
 
 i8S7] THE ARTS AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION, 37 
 
 From ' Some Account of the Origin and Objects of the New Oxford 
 Examinations for the Title of Associate in Arts and Certificates,' 
 by T. D. Acland, late Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford,* 
 1858, pp. 54— 60. 
 
 THE ARTS AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Penrith, Sepf. 25, 1857. 
 My dear Sir, — I have just received your most 
 interesting letter, and will try to answer as shortly 
 as I can, saying nothing of what I feel, and what 
 you must well know I should feel, respecting the 
 difficulty of the questions and their importance ; 
 except only this, that I should not have had the 
 boldness to answer your letter by return of post, 
 unless, in consequence of conversations on this 
 subject with Mr. Acland and Dr. Acland, two 
 
 * 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 des- 
 potic, the great artist usually proves his greatness by rightly setting 
 aside rules ; and the great critic is he who, while he knows tlie 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."
 
 38 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 months ago, I had been lately thinking of it more 
 than of any other.* 
 
 Your questions fall under two heads : (i) The 
 range which an art examination can take. (2) The 
 connection in which it should be placed with other 
 examinations. 
 
 I think the art examination should have three 
 objects : 
 
 (i) To put the happiness and knowledge which 
 the study of art conveys within the conception of 
 the youth, so that he may in after-life pursue them, 
 if he has the gift. 
 
 (2) To enforce, as far as possible, such know- 
 ledge of art among those who are likely to become 
 its patrons, or the guardians of its works, as m_ay 
 enable them usefully to fulfil those duties. 
 
 (3) To distinguish pre-eminent gift for the pro- 
 duction of works of art, so as to get hold of all 
 the good artistical faculty born in the country, and 
 leave no Giotto lost among hill-shepherds.f 
 
 * 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. 
 
 + "Giotto passed the firet ten years of his life, a shepherd-boy, 
 among these hills (of Fiesole); 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 labourer of the earth,' to the guardianship
 
 1857] THE ARTS AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION. 39 
 
 In order to accomplish the first object, I think 
 that, according to Mr. Acland's proposal, preli- 
 minary knowledge of drawing and music should 
 be asked for, in connexion with writing and 
 arithmetic ; but not, in the preliminary examina- 
 tion, made to count towards distinction in other 
 schools. I think drawing is a necessary means of 
 the expression of certain facts of form, and means of 
 acquaintance with them, as arithmetic is the means 
 of acquaintance with facts of number. I think the 
 facts which an elementary knowledge of drawing 
 enables a man to observe and note are often of as 
 much importance to him as those which he can 
 describe in words or calculate in numbers. And 
 I think the cases in which mental deficiency would 
 prevent the acquirement of a serviceable power of 
 drawing would be found as rare as those in which 
 no progress could be made in arithmetic. I would 
 not desire this elementary knowledge to extend far, 
 but the limits which I would propose are not here 
 in question. While I feel the force of all the 
 admirable observations of Mr. Hullah on the use 
 of the study of music, I imagine that the cases of 
 physical incapacity of distinguishing sounds would 
 
 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 dis- 
 ciple." — ('Giotto and his Works in Padua,'by John Ruskin, 1854, p. 12.)
 
 40 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 be too frequent to admit of musical knowledge 
 being made a requirement ; I would ask for it, in 
 Mr. Acland's sense ; but the drawing might, I think, 
 be required, as arithmetic would be. 
 
 2. To accomplish the second object is the main 
 difficulty. Touching which I venture positively to 
 state — 
 
 First. That sound criticism of art is impossible 
 to young men, for it consists principally, and in a 
 far more exclusive sense than has yet been felt, in 
 the recognition of the facts represented by the art. 
 A great artist represents many and abstruse facts ; 
 it is necessary, in order to judge of his works, that 
 all those facts should be experimentally (not by 
 hearsay) known to the observer ; whose recognition 
 of them constitutes his approving judgment. A 
 young man cannot know them. 
 
 Criticism of art by young men must, therefore, 
 consist either in the more or less apt retailing 
 and application of received opinions, or in a more 
 or less immediate and dexterous use of the know- 
 ledge they already possess, so as to be able to 
 assert of given works of art that they are true up 
 to a certain point ; the probability being then that 
 they are true farther than the young man sees. 
 
 The first kind of criticism is, in general, useless, 
 if not harmful ; the second is that which the youths
 
 1857] THE ARTS AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION. 4 1 
 
 will employ who are capable of becoming critics 
 in after years. 
 
 Secondly. All criticism of art, at whatever period 
 of life, must be partial ; warped more or less by 
 the feelings of the person endeavouring to judge. 
 Certain merits of art (as energy, for instance) are 
 pleasant only to certain temperaments ; and certain 
 tendencies of art (as, for instance, to religious senti- 
 ment) can only be sympathized with by one order of 
 minds. It is almost impossible to conceive of any 
 mode of examination which would set the students 
 on anything like equitable footing in such respects; 
 but their sensibility to art may be generally tested. 
 
 Thirdly. The history of art, or the study, in 
 your accurate words, " about the subject," is in no 
 wise directly connected with the studies which 
 promote or detect art-capacity or art-judgment. It 
 is quite possible to acquire the most extensive and 
 useful knowledge of the forms of art existing in 
 different ages, and among different nations, without 
 thereby acquiring any power whatsoever of deter- 
 mining respecting any of them (much less respecting 
 a modern work of art) whether it is good or bad. 
 
 These three facts being so, we had perhaps best 
 consider, first, what direction the art studies of the 
 youth should take, as that will at once regulate 
 the mode of examination.
 
 42 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 First. He should be encouraged to carry forward 
 the practical power of drawing he has acquired in 
 the elementary school. This should be done chiefly 
 by using that power as a help in other work : 
 precision of touch should be cultivated by map- 
 drawing in his geography class ; taste in form by 
 flower-drawing in the botanical schools ; and bone 
 and limb drawing in the physiological schools. His 
 art, kept thus to practical service, will always be 
 right as far as it goes ; there will be no affectation 
 or shallowness in it. The work of the drawing- 
 master would be at first little more than the exhi- 
 bition of the best means and enforcement of the 
 most perfect results in the collateral studies of form. 
 
 Secondly. His critical power should be developed 
 by the presence around him of the best models, 
 into the excellence of wJiich his knozvledge permits 
 him to enter. He should be encouraged, above all 
 things, to form and express judgment of his own ; 
 not as if his judgment were of any importance as 
 related to the excellence of the thing, but that 
 both his master and he may know precisely in 
 what state his mind is. He should be told of an 
 Albert Durer engraving, " That is good, whether 
 you like it or not ; but be sure to determine 
 zvhetJter you do or do not, and why." All formal 
 expressions of reasons for opinion, such as a boy
 
 1857] THE ARTS AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION. 43 
 
 could catch up and repeat, should be withheld 
 like poison ; and all models which are too good 
 for him should be kept out of his way. Contem- 
 plation of works of art without understanding 
 them jades the faculties and enslaves the intelli- 
 gence. A Rembrandt etching is a better example 
 to a boy than a finished Titian, and a cast from a 
 leaf than one of the Elgin marbles. 
 
 Thirdly. I would no more involv^e the art-schools 
 in the study of the history of art than surgical 
 schools in that of the history of surgery. But a 
 general idea of the influence of art on the human 
 mind ought to be given by the study of history 
 in the historical schools ; the effect of a picture, 
 and power of a painter, being examined just as 
 carefully (in relation to its extent) as the effect 
 of a battle and the power of a general. History, 
 in its full sense, involves subordinate knowledge of 
 all that influences the acts of mankind ; it has 
 hardly yet been written at all, owing to the want 
 of such subordinate knowledge in the historians ; 
 it has been confined either to the relation of 
 events by eye-witnesses, (the only valuable form ot 
 it,) or the more or less ingenious collation of such 
 relations. And it is especially desirable to give 
 history a more archaeological range at this period, 
 so that the class of manufactures produced by a
 
 44 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 city at a given date should be made of more 
 importance in the student's mind than the humours 
 of the factions that governed, or details of the acci- 
 dents that preserved it, because every day renders 
 the destruction of historical memorials more com- 
 plete in Europe owing to the total want of interest 
 in them felt by its upper and middle classes. 
 
 Fourthly. Where the faculty for art was special, 
 it ought to be carried forward to the study of design, 
 first in practical application to manufacture, then in 
 higher branches of composition. The general princi- 
 ples of the application of art to manufacture should 
 be explained in all cases, whether of special or 
 limited faculty. Under this head we may at once 
 get rid of the third question stated in the first page — 
 how to detect special gift. The power of drawing 
 from a given form accurately would not be enough 
 to prove this : the additional power of design, with 
 that of eye for colour, which could be tested in the 
 class concerned with manufacture, would justify the 
 master in advising and encouraging the youth to 
 undertake special pursuit of art as an object of life. 
 
 It seems easy, on the supposition of such a 
 course of study, to conceive a mode of examina- 
 tion which would test relative excellence. I cannot 
 suggest the kind of questions which ought to be 
 put to the class occupied with sculpture ; but in 
 
 1
 
 l8S7] THE ARTS AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION. 45 
 
 my own business of painting, I should put, in 
 general, such tasks and questions as these : — 
 
 (i) "Sketch such and such an object" (given 
 a difficult one, as a bird, complicated piece of 
 drapery, or foliage) " as completely as you can in 
 light and shade in half an hour." 
 
 (2) " Finish such and such a portion of it " 
 (given a very small portion) " as perfectly as you 
 can, irrespective of time." 
 
 (3) " Sketch it in colour in half an hour. 
 
 (4) " Design an ornament for a given place and 
 purpose." 
 
 (5) " Sketch a picture of a given historical event 
 in pen and ink." 
 
 (6) " Sketch it in colours." 
 
 (7) " Name the picture you were most interested 
 in in the Royal Academy Exhibition of this year. 
 State in writing what you suppose to be its 
 principal merits — faults — the reasons of the interest 
 you took in it." 
 
 I think it is only the fourth of these questions 
 
 which would admit of much change ; and the 
 
 seventh, in the name of the exhibition ; the ques- 
 tion being asked, without previous knowledge by 
 
 the students, respecting some one of four or five 
 
 given exhibitions which should be visited before 
 the Examination.
 
 46 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 This being my general notion of what an Art- 
 Examination should be, the second great question 
 remains of the division of schools and connexion 
 of studies. 
 
 Now I have not yet considered — I have not, 
 indeed, knowledge enough to enable me to con- 
 sider — what the practical convenience or results 
 of given arrangements would be. But the logical 
 and harmonious arrangement is surely a simple 
 one ; and it seems to me as if it would not be 
 inconvenient, namely, (requiring elementary drawing 
 with arithmetic in the preliminary Examination,) 
 that there should then be three advanced schools : — 
 
 A. The School of Literature (occupied chiefly in 
 
 the study of human emotion and history). 
 
 B. The School of Science (occupied chiefly in 
 
 the study of external facts and existences 
 of constant kind). 
 
 C. The School of Art (occupied in the develop- 
 
 ment of active and productive human 
 faculties). 
 In the school A, I would include Composition 
 in all languages, Poetry, History, Archaeology, 
 Ethics. 
 
 In the school B, Mathematics, Political Economy, 
 the Physical Sciences (including Geography and 
 Medicine).
 
 i857] THE ARTS AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION. 4/ 
 
 In the school C, Painting, Sculpture, including 
 Architecture, Agriculture, Manufacture, War, Music, 
 Bodily Exercises, (Navigation in seaport schools,) 
 including laws of health. 
 
 I should require, for a first class, proficiency in 
 two schools ; not, of course, in all the subjects of 
 each chosen school, but in a well-chosen and 
 combined group of them. Thus, I should call a 
 very good first-class man one who had got some 
 such range of subjects, and such proficiency in 
 each, as this : — 
 
 English, Greek, and Mediaeval- 
 Italian Literature. High. 
 
 English and French History, and 
 
 Archaeology. Average. 
 
 Conic Sections. Thorough, as far as learnt. 
 
 Pohtical Economy. Thorough, as far as learnt. 
 
 Botany, or Chemistry, or Physiology. High. 
 
 Painting. Average. 
 
 Music. Average. 
 
 Bodily Exercises. High. 
 
 I have written you a sadly long letter, but I 
 
 could not manage to get it shorter. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, 
 
 Very faithfully and respectfully yours, 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 Rev. F, Temple.
 
 48 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 Perhaps I had better add what to you, but not 
 to every one who considers such a scheme of 
 education, would be palpable, — that the main value 
 of it would be brought out by judicious involution 
 of its studies. This, for instance, would be the 
 kind of Examination Paper I should hope for in 
 the Botanical Class : — 
 
 1. State the habit of such and such a plant. 
 
 2. Sketch its leaf, and a portion of its ramifi- 
 cations (memory). 
 
 3. Explain the mathematical laws of its growth 
 and structure. 
 
 4. Give the composition of its juices in different 
 seasons. 
 
 5. Its uses .'' Its relations to other families of 
 plants, and conceivable uses beyond those known ? 
 
 6. Its commercial value in London ? Mode of 
 cultivation .-' 
 
 7. Its mythological meaning } The commonest 
 or most beautiful fables respecting it .'' 
 
 8. Quote any important references to it by great 
 poets. 
 
 9. Time of its introduction. 
 
 10. Describe its consequent influence on civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 Of all these ten c[uestIons, there is not one 
 which does not test the student in other studies
 
 i857] THE ARTS AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION. 49 
 
 than botany. Thus, i, Geography ; 2, Drawing ; 
 3, Mathematics ; 4, 5, Chemistry ; 6, PoHtical 
 Economy; 7, 8, 9, 10, Literature. 
 
 Of course the plants required to be thus studied 
 could be but few, and would rationally be chosen 
 from the most useful of foreign plants, and those 
 common and indigenous in England. All sciences 
 should, I think, be taught more for the sake of 
 their facts, and less for that of their system, than 
 heretofore. Comprehensive and connected views are 
 impossible to most men ; the systems they learn 
 are nothing but skeletons to them ; but nearly all 
 men can understand the relations of a few facts 
 bearing on daily business, and to be exemplified 
 in common substances. And science will soon be 
 so vast that the most comprehensive men will 
 still be narrow, and we shall see the fitness of 
 rather teaching our youth to concentrate their 
 general intelligence highly on given points than 
 scatter it toAvards an infinite horizon from which 
 they can fetch nothing, and to which they can 
 carry nothing. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 50 LETTERS ON ART. [1866 
 
 From 'Nature and Art,' December I, 1866. 
 
 ART-TEACHING BY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Dear Mr. Williams,* — I like your plan of teach- 
 ing by letter exceedingly : and not only so, but 
 have myself adopted it largely, with the help of 
 an intelligent under-master, whose operations, how- 
 ever, so far from interfering with, you will much 
 facilitate, if you can bring this literary way ot 
 teaching into more accepted practice. I wish we 
 had more drawing-rnasters who were able to give 
 instruction definite enough to be expressed in 
 writing : many can teach nothing but a few tricks 
 of the brush, and have nothing to write, because 
 nothing to tell. 
 
 With every wish for your success, — a wish which 
 
 I make quite as much in your pupils' interest as 
 
 in your own, — 
 
 Believe me, always faithfully yours, 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 Denmark Hill, November i860. 
 
 * 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.
 
 LETTERS ON ART. 
 
 II- 
 
 PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS AND THE NATIONAL 
 GALLERY. 
 
 DANGER TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 1847. 
 
 THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 1852. 
 
 THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 1866. 
 
 ON THE PURCHASE OF PICTURES. i88o.
 
 II. 
 
 PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS AND THE 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 From 'The Times,' January 7, 1847. 
 
 DANGER TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY.* 
 To the Editor of ' The Tiniest 
 
 Sir, — x\s I am sincerely desirous that a stop 
 may be put to the dangerous process of cleaning 
 lately begun in our National Gallery, and as I 
 believe that what is right is most effectively when 
 most kindly advocated, and what is true most 
 convincingly when least passionately asserted, I was 
 grieved to see the violent attack upon Mr. Eastlake 
 
 * Some words are necessary to explain this and the following letter. 
 In the autumn of 1 846 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 Galleiy, 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,
 
 54 LETTERS ON ART. [1847 
 
 in your columns of Friday last ; yet not less sur- 
 prised at the attempted defence which appeared 
 in them yesterday.* The outcry which has arisen 
 upon this subject has been just, but it has been 
 too loud ; the injury done is neither so great nor 
 so wilful as has been asserted, and I fear that the 
 respect which might have been paid to remon- 
 strance may be refused to clamour. 
 
 I was inclined at first to join as loudly as any 
 in the hue and cry. Accustomed, as I have been, 
 to look to England as the refuge of the pictorial 
 as of all other distress, and to hope that, having 
 no high art of her own, she would at least protect 
 what she could not produce, and respect what she 
 could not restore, I could not but look upon the 
 attack which has been made upon the pictures 
 in question as on the violation of a sanctuary. I 
 had seen in Venice the noblest v/orks of Veronese 
 
 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. 
 
 * 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.
 
 1847] DANGER TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 5 5 
 
 painted over with flake-white with a brush fit for 
 tarring ships ; I had seen in Florence AngeHco's 
 highest inspiration rotted and seared into fragments 
 of old wood, burnt into blisters, or blotted into 
 glutinous maps of mildew ; * I had seen in Paris 
 Raphael restored by David and Vernet ; and I 
 returned to England in the one last trust that, 
 though her National Gallery was an European jest, 
 her art a shadow, and her connoisseurship an 
 hypocrisy, though she neither knev/ how to cherish 
 nor how to choose, and lay exposed to the cheats 
 of every vendor of old canvass, — yet that such good 
 pictures as through chance or oversight might find 
 their way beneath that preposterous portico, and 
 into those melancholy and miserable rooms, were 
 at least to be vindicated thenceforward from the 
 mercy of republican, priest, or painter, safe alike 
 from musketry, monkery, and manipulation. 
 
 But whatever pain I may feel at the dissipation 
 of this dream, I am not disposed altogether to deny 
 the necessity of some illuminatory process with 
 respect to pictures exposed to a London atmosphere 
 and populace. Dust an inch thick, accumulated 
 upon the panes in the course of the day, and dark- 
 
 * 'The Crucifixion, or Adoiation 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.
 
 56 LETTERS ON ART. [1847 
 
 ness closing over the canvass like a curtain, attest 
 too forcibly the influence on floor and air of the 
 " mutable, rank-scented, many." It is of little use 
 to be over-anxious for the preservation of pictures 
 which we cannot see ; the only question is, whether 
 in the present instance the process may not have 
 been carried perilously far, and whether in future 
 simpler and safer means may not be adopted to 
 remove the coat of dust and smoke, without 
 affecting either the glazing of the picture, or, what 
 is almost as precious, the mellow tone left by 
 time. 
 
 As regards the " Peace and War," * I have no 
 hesitation in asserting that for the present it is 
 utterly and for ever partially destroyed. I am 
 not disposed lightly to impugn the judgment of 
 Mr. Eastlake, but this was indisputably of all the 
 pictures in the Gallery that which least required, 
 and least could endure, the process of cleaning. It 
 was in the most advantageous condition under 
 which a work of Rubens can be seen ; mellowed 
 by time into more perfect harmony than when it 
 left the easel, enriched and warmed, without losing 
 any of its freshness or energy. The execution 
 of the master is always so bold and frank as to 
 be completely, perhaps even most agreeably, seen 
 
 * No. 46 in the National Gallery.
 
 '1847] DANGER TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 57 
 
 under circumstances of obscurity, which would be 
 injurious to pictures of greater refinement ; and, 
 though this was, indeed, one of his most highly 
 finished and careful works, (to my mind, before it 
 suffered this recent injury, far superior to everything 
 at Antwerp, Malines, or Cologne,) this was a more 
 weighty reason for caution than for interference. 
 Some portions of colour have been exhibited which 
 were formerly untraceable ; but even these have lost 
 in power what they have gained in definiteness, — 
 the majesty and preciousness of all the tones are 
 departed, the balance of distances lost. Time may 
 perhaps restore something of the glow, but never the 
 subordination ; and the more delicate portions of 
 flesh tint, especially the back of the female figure on 
 the left, and of the boy in the centre, are destroyed 
 for ever. 
 
 The large Cuyp * is, I think, nearly uninjured. 
 Many portions of the foreground painting have 
 been revealed, which were before only to be traced 
 painfully, if at all. The distance has indeed lost 
 the appearance of sunny haze, which was its chief 
 charm, but this I have little doubt it originally did 
 not possess, and in process of time may recover. 
 
 * '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."
 
 58 LETTERS ON ART. [1847 
 
 The " Bacchus and Ariadne " * of Titian has 
 escaped so scot free that, not knowing it had been 
 cleaned, I passed it without noticing any change. 
 I observed only that the blue of the distance was 
 more intense than I had previously thought it, 
 though, four years ago, I said of that distance 
 that it was " difficult to imagine anything more 
 magnificently impossible, not from its vividness, 
 but because it is not faint and aerial enough to 
 account for its purity of colour. There is so total 
 a want of atmosphere in it, that but for the differ- 
 ence of form it would be impossible to distinguish 
 the mountains from the robe of Ariadne." t 
 
 Your correspondent is alike unacquainted with 
 the previous condition of this picture, and with the 
 character of Titian distances in general, when he 
 complains of a loss of aerial quality resulting in 
 the present case from cleaning. 
 
 I unfortunately did not see the new Velasquez J 
 until it had undergone its discipline ; but I have 
 seldom met with an example of the master which 
 gave me more delight, or which I believed to be 
 
 t 'Modern Painters,' vol. i. p. 146. 
 
 * No. 35 in the National Gallery. This and the two pictures 
 already mentioned were the typical instances of "spoilt pictures," 
 quoted by ' Verax.' 
 
 X 'Philip IV. of .Spain, hunting the Wild Boar' (No. 197), pur- 
 chased in 1846.
 
 1847] DANGER TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 59 
 
 in more genuine or perfect condition. I saw no 
 traces of the retouching which is hinted at by your 
 correspondent " Verax," nor are the touches on that 
 canvass such as to admit of very easy or untraceable 
 interpolation of meaner handling. His complaint of 
 loss of substance in the figures of the foreground 
 is, I have no doubt, altogether groundless. He has 
 seen little southern scenery if he supposes that the 
 brilliancy and apparent nearness of the silver clouds 
 is in the slightest degree overcharged ; and shows 
 little appreciation of Velasquez in supposing him 
 to have sacrificed the solemnity and might of such 
 a distance to the inferior interest of the figures 
 in the foreground. Had he studied the picture 
 attentively, he might have observed that the position 
 of the horizon suggests, and the lateral extent of 
 the foreground proves, such a distance between the 
 spectator and even its nearest figures as may well 
 justify the slightness of their execution. 
 
 Even granting that some of the upper glazings 
 of the figures had been removed, the tone of the 
 whole picture is so light, gray, and glittering, 
 and the dependence on the power of its whites so 
 absolute, that I think the process hardly to be 
 regretted which has left these in lustre so precious, 
 and restored to a brilliancy which a comparison 
 with any modern work of similar aim would render
 
 6o LETTERS ON ART. [1847 
 
 apparently supernatural, the sparkling motion of its 
 figures and the serene snow of its sky. 
 
 I believe I have stated to its fullest extent all 
 the harm that has yet been done, yet I earnestly 
 protest against any continuance of the treatment 
 to which these pictures have been subjected. It 
 is useless to allege that nothing but discoloured 
 varnish has been withdrawn, for it is perfectly 
 possible to alter the structure and continuity, and 
 so destroy the aerial relations of colours of which 
 no part has been removed. I have seen the dark 
 blue of a water-colour drawing made opaque and 
 pale merely by mounting it ; and even supposing 
 no other injury were done, every time a picture is 
 cleaned it loses, like a restored building, part of its 
 authority ; and is thenceforward liable to dispute 
 and suspicion, every one of its beauties open to 
 question, while its faults are screened from accu- 
 sation. It cannot be any more reasoned from with 
 security ; for, though allowance may be made for 
 the effect of time, no one can calculate the arbi- 
 trary and accidental changes occasioned by violent 
 cleaning. None of the varnishes should be attacked ; 
 whatever the medium used, nothing but soot and 
 dust should be taken away, and that chiefly by 
 delicate and patient friction ; and, in order to pro- 
 tract as long as possible the necessity even for this
 
 1847] DANGER TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 6 1 
 
 all the important pictures in the gallery should at 
 once be put under glass,* and closed, not merely 
 by hinged doors, like the Correggio, but permanently 
 and securely. I should be glad to see this done in 
 all rich galleries, but it is peculiarly necessary in 
 the case of pictures exposed in London, and to a 
 crowd freely admitted four days in the week ; it 
 would do good also by necessitating the enlarge- 
 ment of the rooms, and the bringing down of all 
 the pictures to the level of the eye. Every picture 
 that is worth buying or retaining is worth exhibiting 
 in its proper place, and if its scale be large, and 
 its handling rough, there is the more instruction 
 to be gained by close study of the various means 
 adopted by the master to secure his distant effect. 
 We can certainly spare both the ground and the 
 funds which would enable us to exhibit pictures 
 for which no price is thought too large, and for all 
 purposes of study and for most of enjoyment pictures 
 are useless when they are even a little above the 
 
 * On this and other collateral subjects the reader is referred to the 
 next letter ; to Mr. Raskin'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 
 Galleiy had been founded less than five-and-twenty years.
 
 ■62 LETTERS ON ART. [1847 
 
 line. The fatigue complained of by most persons 
 in examining a picture gallery is attributable, not 
 only to the number of works, but to their con- 
 fused order of succession, and to the straining of 
 the sight in endeavouring to penetrate the details 
 of those above the eye. Every gallery should be 
 long enough to admit of its whole collection 
 being hung in one line, side by side, and wide 
 enough to allow of the spectators retiring to the 
 distance at which the largest picture was intended 
 to be seen. The works of every master should 
 be brought together and arranged in chronological 
 order ; and such drawings or engravings as may 
 exist in the collection, either of, or for, its pictures, 
 or in any way illustrative of them, should be placed 
 in frames opposite each, in the middle of the room. 
 
 But, Sir, the subjects of regret connected with 
 the present management of our national collection 
 are not to be limited either to its treatment or its 
 arrangement. The principles of selection which 
 have been acted upon in the course of the last 
 five or six years have been as extraordinary as 
 unjustifiable. Whatever may be the intrinsic power, 
 interest, or artistical ability of the earlier essays of 
 any school of art, it cannot be disputed that charac- 
 teristic examples of every one of its most important 
 phases should form part of a national collection :
 
 1847] DANGER TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 63 
 
 granting them of little value individually, their col- 
 lective teaching is of irrefragable authority ; and the 
 exhibition of perfected results alone, while the course 
 of national progress through which these were reached 
 is altogether concealed, is more likely to discourage 
 than to assist the efforts of an undeveloped school. 
 Granting even what the shallowest materialism of 
 modern artists would assume, that the works of 
 Perugino were of no value but as they taught 
 Raphael — 'that John Bellini is altogether absorbed 
 and overmastered by Titian — that Nino Pisano was 
 utterly superseded by Bandinelli or Cellini, and 
 Ghirlandajo sunk in the shadow of Buonaroti — 
 granting Van Eyck to be a mere mechanist, and 
 Giotto a mere child, and Angelico a superstitious 
 monk, and whatever you choose to grant that ever 
 blindness deemed or insolence affirmed, still it is to 
 be maintained and proved, that if we wish to have 
 a Buonaroti or a Titian of our own, we shall with 
 more wisdom learn of those of whom Buonaroti 
 and Titian learned, and at whose knees they were 
 brought up, and whom to their day of death they 
 ever revered and worshipped, than of those wretched 
 pupils and partisans who sank every high function 
 of art into a form and a faction, betrayed her 
 trusts, darkened her traditions, overthrew her 
 throne, and left us where we now are, stumbling
 
 64 LETTERS ON ART. [1847 
 
 among its fragments. Sir, if the canvasses of 
 Guido, lately introduced into the gallery,* had been 
 works of the best of those pupils, which they are 
 not, — if they had been good works of even that 
 bad master, which they are not, — if they had been 
 genuine and untouched works, even though feeble, 
 which they are not, — if, though false and retouched 
 remnants of a feeble and fallen school, they had 
 been endurably decent or elementarily instructive, 
 some conceivable excuse might perhaps have been 
 by ingenuity forged, and by impudence uttered, for 
 their introduction into a gallery where we previously 
 possessed two good Guidos,t and no Perugino (for 
 the attribution to him of the wretched panel which 
 now bears his name is a mere insult), no Angelico, 
 
 * ' Lot and his Daughters leaving Sodom ' (No. 193), bequeathed 
 to the gallery in 1844 ; and ' Susannah and the Elders' (No. 196), pur- 
 chased in the same year. 
 
 f The " two good Guidos" previously possessed are the ' St. Jerome' 
 (No. 11) and the 'Magdalen' (No. 177). The "wretched panel" is 
 No. 181, 'The Virgin and Infant Christ with St. John.' For the rest, 
 the gallery now includes two other Peruginos, ' The Virgin adoring the 
 Infant Christ, the Archangel Michael, the Archangel Raphael and Tobias' 
 (No. 288), three panels, purchased in 1856, and the very recent (1879) 
 purchase of the 'Virgin and Child with St. Jerome and St. Francis' 
 (No. 1075). It boasts also two Angelicos, 'The Adoration of the 
 Magi' (No. 582), and ' Christ amid the Blessed' (No. 663), purchased in 
 1857 and i860; — one Albertinelli, 'Virgin and Child' (No. 645), also 
 purchased in i860; — and two Lorenzo di Credis, both of the 'Virgin 
 and Child' (Nos. 593 and 648), purchased in 1857 and 1S65. But it still 
 possesses no Fra Bartolomeo, no Ghirlandajo, and no Verrochio.
 
 1847] DANGER TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 65 
 
 no Fra Bartolomeo, no Albertinelli, no Ghirlandajo, 
 no Verrochio, no Lorenzo di Credi — (what shall 
 I more say, for the time would fail me ?) — but 
 now, sir, what vestige of apology remains for the 
 cumbering our walls with pictures that have no 
 single virtue, no colour, no drawing, no character, 
 no history, no thought ? Yet 2,000 guineas were, 
 I believe, given for one of those encumbrances, 
 and 5,000 for the coarse and unnecessary Rubens,* 
 added to a room half filled with Rubens before, 
 while a mighty and perfect work of Angelico was 
 sold from Cardinal Fesch's collection for i,5oo.t I 
 do not speak of the spurious Holbein, t for though 
 the veriest tyro might well be ashamed of such a 
 purchase, it would have been a judicious addition 
 had it been genuine ; so was the John Bellini, so was 
 the Van Eyck ; but the mighty Venetian master, 
 
 * ' The Judgment of Paris ' (No. 194), purchased from Mr. Penrice's 
 collection in 1846. 
 
 f ' The Last Judgment ' ; — its purchaser was the Earl of Dudley, in 
 whose possession the picture, now hanging at Dudley House in London, 
 has ever since remained. An engi-aving of this work (pronounced the 
 finest of Angelico's four representations of the subject), may be found 
 in Mrs. Jameson's ' History of our Lord,' vol. ii. p. 414. Cardinal Fesch 
 was Archbishop of Lyons, and the uncle of Napoleon Buonaparte. 
 His gallery contained in its time the finest private collection of pictures 
 in Rome. 
 
 X The "libel on Holbein" was bought as an original, from Mr. 
 Rochard, in 1845. ^^ ^^^ figures in the National Gallery as 'A 
 Medical Professor, — artist unknown' (No. 195). 
 
 VOL. L 5
 
 66 LETTERS ON ART. [1847 
 
 who alone of all the painters of Italy united purity 
 of religious aim with perfection of artistical power, 
 is poorly represented by a single head ;* and I ask, 
 in the name of the earnest students of England, 
 that the funds set apart for her gallery may no 
 longer be played with like pebbles in London 
 auction-rooms. Let agents be sent to all the cities 
 of Italy ; let the noble pictures which are perish- 
 ing there be rescued from the invisibility and ill- 
 treatment which their position too commonly implies, 
 and let us have a national collection which, however 
 imperfect, shall be orderly and continuous, and shall 
 exhibit with something like relative candour and 
 justice the claims to our reverence of those great 
 and ancient builders, whose mighty foundation has 
 been for two centuries concealed by wood, and hay, 
 and stubble, the distorted growing, and thin gleaning 
 of vain men in blasted fields. 
 
 I have the honour to be. Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 The Author of 'Modern Painters.' 
 
 yan. 6. 
 
 * The Bellini is the ' Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredano' (No. 189), 
 purchased in 1844: four more examples (Nos. 280, 726, 808, 812) of 
 the same "mighty Venetian master "have since been introduced, so that 
 he is no longer "poorly represented by a single head." The Van Eyck 
 is the 'Portrait of Jean Arnolfini and his Wife' (No. 186), purchased 
 in 1842.
 
 1852] THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 6^ 
 
 From ' The Times,' December 29, 1852. 
 
 THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 To the Editor of ' The Times. ' 
 
 Sir, — I trust that the excitement which has been 
 caused by the alleged destruction of some of the 
 most important pictures in the National Gallery 
 will not be without results, whatever may be the 
 facts of the case with respect to the works in 
 question. Under the name of " restoration," the 
 ruin of the noblest architecture and painting is 
 constant throughout Europe. We shall show our- 
 selves wiser than our neighbours if the loss of two 
 Claudes and the injury of a Paul Veronese* induce 
 us to pay so much attention to the preservation of 
 ancient art as may prevent it from becoming a 
 disputed question in future whether they are indeed 
 pictures which we possess or their skeletons. 
 
 As to the facts in the present instance, I can 
 give no opinion. Sir Charles Eastlake and Mr. 
 Uwins t know more than I of oil paintings in 
 
 * Claude's 'Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca' (No. 12), and his 
 'Queen of Sheba' picture (No. 14, Seaport, with figures). The only 
 pictures of Veronese which the Gallery at this time contained, were the 
 'Consecration of St. Nicholas' (No. 26), and the 'Rape of Europa ' 
 (No. 97). It is the former of these two that is here spoken of as 
 injured (see the Report of the National Gallery Committee in i 553). 
 
 f Mr. Thomas Uwins, R.A., had succeeded Sir Charles Eastlake as 
 Keeper of the National Gallery in 1847 ; and resigned, for a similar 
 reason, in 1855.
 
 68 LETTERS ON ART. [1852 
 
 general, and have far more profound respect for 
 those of Claude in particular. I do not suppose 
 they would have taken from him his golden armour 
 that Turner might bear away a dishonourable vic- 
 tory in the noble passage of arms to which he has 
 challenged his rival from the grave.*' Nor can the 
 public suppose that the Curators of the National 
 Gallery have any interest in destroying the works 
 with which they are intrusted. If, acting to the 
 best of their judgment, they have done harm, to 
 whom are we to look for greater prudence or better 
 success .'' Are the public prepared to withdraw their 
 confidence from Sir C. Eastlake and the members 
 of the Royal Academy, and entrust the national 
 property to Mr. Morris Moore, or to any of the 
 artists and amateurs who have inflamed the sheets 
 of T/ie Times with their indignation .'' Is it not 
 
 * The public may not, perhaps, be generally aware that 
 the condition by which the nation retains the two pictures 
 bequeathed to it by Turner, and now in the National 
 Gallery, is that " they shall be hung beside Claude's." f 
 
 f 'Dido building Carthage ' (No. 498), and 'The Sun rising in a 
 Mist ' (No. 479). The actual wording of Turner's will on the matter 
 ran thus : " I direct that the said pictures, or paintings, shall be hung, 
 kept, and placed, that is to say, always between the two pictures 
 painted by Claude, the Seaport and the Mill." Accordingly they 
 now hang side by side with these two pictures (Nos. 5 and 12) in the 
 National Gallery,
 
 1852] THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 69 
 
 evident that the only security which the nation 
 can possess for its pictures must be found in taking 
 such measures as may in future prevent the neces- 
 sity of their being touched at all ? For this is 
 very certain, that all question respecting the effects 
 of cleaning is merely one of the amount of injury. 
 Every picture which has undergone more friction 
 than is necessary at intervals for the removal of 
 dust or dirt, has suffered injury to some extent. 
 The last touches of the master leave the surface 
 of the colour with a certain substantial texture, the 
 bloom of which, if once reached under the varnish, 
 must inevitably be more or less removed by friction 
 of any kind, — how much more by friction aided by 
 solvents ? I am well assured that every possessor 
 of pictures who truly loves them, would keep — if 
 it might be — their surfaces from being so much 
 as breathed upon, which may, indeed, be done, and 
 done easily. 
 
 Every stranger who enters our National Gallery, 
 if he be a thoughtful person, must assuredly put to 
 himself a curious question. Perceiving that certain 
 pictures — namely, three Correggios, two Raphaels, 
 and a John Bellini — are put under glass,* and that 
 all the others are left exposed, as oil pictures are 
 in general, he must ask himself, — " Is it an ascer- 
 
 * See p. 61, note.
 
 70 LETTERS ON ART. [1852 
 
 tained fact that glass preserves pictures ; and are 
 none of the pictures here thought worth a pane 
 of glass but these five?* Or is it unascertained 
 whether glass is beneficial or injurious, and have 
 the Raphaels and Correggios been selected for the 
 trial — ' Fiat experimentum in covpore vili ? ' " Some 
 years ago it might have been difficult to answer 
 him ; now the answer is easy, though it be strange. 
 The experiment has been made. The Raphaels and 
 Correggios have been under glass for many years : 
 they are as fresh and lovely as when they were first 
 enclosed ; they need no cleaning, and will need none 
 for half a century to come ; and it must be, there- 
 fore, that the rest of the pictures are left exposed to 
 the London atmosphere, and to the operations which 
 its influence renders necessary, simply because they 
 are not thought worth a pane of plate glass. No : 
 there is yet one other possible answer, — that many 
 of them are hung so high, or in such lights, that they 
 could not be seen if they were glazed. Is it then 
 absolutely necessary that they should be hung so 
 high ? We are about to build a new National Gal- 
 lery ; may it not be so arranged as that the pictures 
 we place therein may at once be safe and visible ? 
 
 I know that this has never yet been done in 
 any gallery in Europe, for the European public have 
 
 * Query, a misprint ? as six pictures are mentioned. 
 
 i
 
 1852] THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 7 1 
 
 never yet reflected that a picture which was worth 
 buying was also worth seeing. Some time or other 
 they will assuredly awake to the perception of this 
 wonderful truth, and it would be some credit to our 
 English common sense if we were the first to act 
 upon it. 
 
 I say that a picture which is worth buying is 
 also worth seeing ; that is, worth so much room of 
 ground and wall as shall enable us to see it to the 
 best advantage. It is not comimonly so under- 
 stood. Nations, like individuals, buy their pictures 
 in mere ostentation ; and are content, so that their 
 possessions are acknowledged, that they should be 
 hung in any dark or out-of-the-way corners which 
 their frames will fit. Or, at best, the popular idea 
 of a national gallery is that of a magnificent palace, 
 whose walls must be decorated with coloured panels, 
 every one of which shall cost ^1,000, and be dis- 
 cernible, through a telescope, for the work of a 
 mighty hand. 
 
 I have no doubt that in a few years more there 
 will be a change of feeling in this matter, and that 
 men will begin to perceive, what is indeed the truth, 
 — that every noble picture is a manuscript book, 
 of which only one copy exists, or ever can exist ; 
 that a national gallery is a great library, of which 
 the books must be read upon their shelves ; that
 
 72 LETTERS ON ART. [1852 
 
 every manuscript ought, therefore, to be placed 
 where it can be read most easily;* and that the 
 style of the architecture and the effect of the saloons 
 are matters of no importance whatsoever, but that 
 our solicitude ought to begin and end in the two 
 imperative requirements — that every picture in the 
 gallery should be perfectly seen and perfectly safe ; 
 that none should be thrust up, or down, or aside, 
 to make room for more important ones ; that 
 all should be in a good light, all on a level with 
 the eye, and all secure from damp, cold, impurity 
 of atmosphere, and every other avoidable cause of 
 deterioration. 
 
 These are the things to be accomplished ; and if 
 we set ourselves to do these in our new National 
 Galler}'',t we shall have made a greater step in art- 
 teaching than if we had built a new Parthenon. I 
 know that it will be a strange idea to most of us 
 
 * "The Art of a nation is, I think, one of the most important points 
 of its history, and a part which, if once destroyed, no history will ever 
 supply the place of; and the first idea of a National Gallery is that it 
 should be a Library of Art, in which the rudest efforts are, in some 
 cases, hardly less important than the noblest." — (National Gallery 
 Commission, 1857, — Mr. Ruskin's evidence.) 
 
 f It was at this time proposed to remove the national pictures from 
 Trafalgar Square to some new building to be erected for them elsewhere. 
 This proposal was, however, negatived by the commission ultimately 
 appointed (1857) to consider the matter, and to some extent rendered 
 unnecessary by the enlargement of the gallery, decided upon in 1S66.
 
 1852] THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 73 
 
 that Titians and Tintorets ought, indeed, all to 
 have places upon " the line," as well as the annual 
 productions of our Royal Academicians ; and I 
 know that the coup d'ceil of the Gallery must be 
 entirely destroyed by such an arrangement. But 
 great pictures ought not to be subjects of " coups 
 d'ceiiy In the last arrangement of the Louvre, 
 under the Republic, all the noble pictures in the 
 gallery were brought into one room, with a Napoleon- 
 like resolution to produce effect by concentration 
 of force ; and, indeed, I would not part willingly 
 with the memory of that saloon, whose obscurest 
 shadows were full of Correggio ; in whose out- 
 of-the-way angles one forgot, here and there, a 
 Raphael ; and in which the best Tintoret on this 
 side of the Alps was hung sixty feet from the 
 ground ! * But Cleopatra dissolving the pearl was 
 nothing to this ; and I trust that, in our own 
 Gallery, our poverty, if not our will, may consent to 
 a more modest and less lavish manner of displaying 
 such treasures as are intrusted to us ; and that the 
 very limitation of our possessions may induce us to 
 
 * The galleries of the Louvre were reorganized on their being 
 declared national instead of crown property, after the Revolution of 
 1848 ; and the choicest pictures were then collected together in the 
 'grand salon carr^,' which, although since rearranged, still contains 
 a similar selection. The 'best Tintoret on this side of the Alps' is 
 the 'Susannah and the Elders,' now No. 349 in that room.
 
 74 LETTERS ON ART. [1852 
 
 make that the object of our care which can hardly 
 be a ground of ostentation. It might, indeed, be a 
 matter of some difficulty to conceive an arrangement 
 of the collections in the Louvre or the Florence 
 Gallery which should admit of every picture being 
 hung upon the line. But the works in our own, 
 including the Vernon and Turner bequests,* present 
 no obstacle in their number to our making the 
 building which shall receive them a perfect model 
 of what a National Gallery ought to be. And the 
 conditions of this perfection are so simple that if 
 we only turn our attention to these main points it 
 wall need no great architectural ingenuity to attain 
 all that is required. 
 
 It is evident, in the first place, that the build- 
 ing ought to consist of a series of chambers or 
 galleries lighted from above, and built with such 
 reference to the pictures they are to contain, as 
 that opposite a large picture room enough should 
 be allowed for the spectator to retire to the utmost 
 distance at which it can ever be desirable that 
 its effect should be seen ; but, as economy of 
 space would become a most important object when 
 
 * The gift of Mr. Robert Vernon, in 1847, consisted of 157 pictures, 
 all of them, with two exceptions only, of the British school. The Turner 
 bequest included 105 finished oil paintings, in addition to the numerous 
 sketches and drawings.
 
 1852] THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 75 
 
 every picture was to be hung on a level with the 
 eye, smaller apartments might open from the larger 
 ones for the reception of smaller pictures, one con- 
 dition being, however, made imperative, whatever 
 space was sacrificed to it — namely, that the works 
 of every master should be collected together, either 
 in the same apartment or in contiguous ones. 
 Nothing has so much retarded the advance of art 
 as our miserable habit of mixing the works of 
 every master and of every century. More would 
 be learned by an ordinarily intelligent observer in 
 simply passing from a room in which there were 
 only Titians to another in which there were only 
 Caraccis, than by reading a volume of lectures on 
 colour. Few minds are strong enough first to 
 abstract and then to generalize the characters 
 of paintings hung at random. Few minds are 
 so dull as not at once to perceive the points of 
 difference, were the works of each painter set by 
 themselves. The fatigue of which most persons 
 complain in passing through a picture gallery, as 
 at present arranged, is indeed partly caused by 
 the straining effort to see what is out of sight, 
 but not less by the continual change of temper and 
 of tone of thought, demanded in passing from the 
 work of one master to that of another. 
 
 The works of each being, therefore, set by them-
 
 76 LETTERS ON ART. [1852 
 
 selves,* and the whole collection arranged in chrono- 
 logical and ethnological order, let apartments be 
 designed for each group large enough to admit 
 of the increase of the existing collection to any 
 probable amount. The whole gallery would thus 
 become of great length, but might be adapted to 
 any form of ground-plan by disposing the whole 
 in a labyrinthine chain, returning upon itself Its 
 chronological arrangement would necessitate its 
 being continuous, rather than divided into many 
 branches or sections. Being lighted from above, 
 it must be all on the same floor, but ought at 
 least to be raised one story above the ground, and 
 might admit any number of keepers' apartments, 
 or of schools, beneath ; though it would be better 
 to make it quite independent of these, in order to 
 diminish the risk of fire. Its walls ought on every 
 side to be surrounded by corridors, so that the 
 interior temperature might be kept equal, and no 
 outer surface of wall on which pictures were hung 
 exposed to the weather. Every picture should 
 be glazed, and the horizon which the painter had 
 given to it placed on a level with the eye. 
 
 * An example of a cognate school might, however, be 
 occasionally introduced for the sake of direct comparison, 
 as in one instance would be necessitated by the condidon 
 above mentioned attached to part of the Turner bequest.
 
 1852] THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 'J^ 
 
 Lastly, opposite each picture should be a table, 
 containing, under glass, every engraving that had 
 ever been made from it, and any studies for it, 
 by the master's own hand, that remained, or were 
 obtainable. The values of the study and of the 
 picture are reciprocally increased — of the former 
 more than doubled — by their being seen together ; 
 and if this system were once adopted, the keepers 
 of the various galleries of Europe would doubtless 
 consent to such exchanges of the sketches in their 
 possession as would render all their collections 
 more interesting. 
 
 I trust, sir, that the importance of this subject 
 will excuse the extent of my trespass upon your 
 columns, and that the simplicity and self-evident 
 desirableness of the arrangement I have described 
 may vindicate my proposal of it from the charge 
 of presumption. 
 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant. 
 The Author of 'Modern Painters.' 
 
 Herne Hill, Dulwich, Dec. 27.
 
 yS LETTERS ON ART. [1866 
 
 From 'The Times,' January 27, 1866. 
 
 THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 To the Editor of ' The Times. ' 
 
 Sir, — As I see in your impression of yesterday 
 that my name was introduced in support of some 
 remarks made, at the meeting of the Society of Arts, 
 on the management of the British Museum,* and as 
 the tendency of the remarks I refer to was depre- 
 ciatory of the efforts and aims of several officers 
 of the Museum — more especially of the work done 
 on the collection of minerals by my friend Mr. Nevil 
 S. Maskelyne f — you will, I hope, permit me, not 
 having been present at the meeting, to express my 
 feeling on the subject briefly in your columns. 
 
 There is a confused notion in the existing public 
 mind that the British Museum is partly a parish 
 school, partly a circulating library, and partly a 
 place for Christmas entertainments. 
 
 * At the meeting of the Society, in the Hall, Adelphi, Lord Henry 
 Lennox read a paper on ' The Uses of National Museums to Local 
 Institutions,' in which he spoke of Mr. Ruskin's suggestions "adopted 
 and recommended to Parliament in annual reports, and in obedience 
 to distinct Commissions, " as having been unwarrantably disregarded 
 since 1858. — See Mr. Ruskin's official report on the Turner Bequest, 
 printed in the ' Report of the Director of the National Gallery to the 
 Lords of the Treasury, 1858,' Appendix vii. 
 
 f Professor Nevil Story-Maskelyne (now M.P. for Cricklade) was 
 then, and till his recent resignation, Keeper of INIineralogy at the 
 Museum.
 
 i866] THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 79 
 
 It is none of the three, and, I hope, will never 
 be made any of the three. But especially and most 
 distinctly it is not a " preparatory school," nor even 
 an "academy for young gentlemen," nor even a 
 " working men's college." A national museum is 
 one thing, a national place of education another ; 
 and the more sternly and unequivocally they are 
 separated, the better will each perform its office — 
 the one of treasuring and the other of teaching. I 
 heartily wish that there were already, as one day 
 there must be, large educational museums in every 
 district of London, freely open every day, and well 
 lighted and warmed at night, with all furniture of 
 comfort, and full aids for the use of their contents 
 by all classes. But you might just as rationally 
 send the British public to the Tower to study 
 mineralogy upon the Crown jewels as make the 
 unique pieces of a worthy national collection (such 
 as, owing mainly to the exertions of its maligned 
 officers, that of our British Museum has recently 
 become,) the means of elementary public instruction. 
 After men have learnt their science or their art, at 
 least so far as to know a common and a rare 
 example in either, a national museum is useful, and 
 ought to be easily accessible to them ; but until 
 then, unique or selected specimens in natural history 
 are without interest to them, and the best art is
 
 80 LETTERS ON ART. [1866 
 
 as useless as a blank wall. For all those who can 
 use the existing national collection to any purpose, 
 the Catalogue as it now stands is amply sufficient : 
 it would be difficult to conceive a more serviceable 
 one. But the rapidly progressive state of (especially 
 mineralogical) science, renders it impossible for the 
 Curators to make their arrangements in all points 
 satisfactory, or for long periods permanent. It is 
 just because Mr. Maskelyne is doing more active, 
 continual, and careful work than, as far as I know, 
 is at present done in any national museum in 
 Europe — because he is completing gaps in the 
 present series by the intercalation of carefully sought 
 specimens, and accurately reforming its classification 
 by recently corrected analyses — that the collection 
 cannot yet fall into the formal and placid order in 
 which an indolent Curator would speedily arrange 
 and willingly leave it. 
 
 I am glad that Lord H. Lennox referred to the 
 passage in my report on the Turner Collection in 
 which I recommended that certain portions of that 
 great series should be distributed, for permanence, 
 among our leading provincial towns.* But I had 
 
 * In Mr. Ruskin's official report already mentioned, and which was 
 made at the close of his labours in arranging the Turner drawings, and 
 dated March 27, 1858, he divided the collection into three classes, of 
 which the third consisted of drawings available for distribution among 
 provincial Schools of Art. The passage of the report referred to is as
 
 i866] THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 8 1 
 
 rather see the whole Turner collection buried, not 
 merely in the cellars of the National Gallery, but 
 with Prospero's staff fathoms in the earth, than that 
 it should be the means of inaugurating the fatal 
 custom of carrying great works of art about the 
 roads for a show. If you must make them educa- 
 tional to the public, hang Titian's Bacchus up for 
 a vintner's sign, and give Henry VI.'s Psalter * for a 
 spelling-book to the Bluecoat School ; but, at least, 
 hang the one from a permanent post, and chain the 
 other to the boys' desks, and do not send them about 
 in caravans to every annual Bartholomew Fair. 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 Denmark Hill, Jan. 26. 
 
 follows: — "The remainder of the collection consists of drawings of 
 miscellaneous character, from which many might be spared with little 
 loss to the collection in London, and great advantage to students in 
 the Provinces. Five or six collections, each completely illustrative of 
 Turner's modes of study, and successions of practice, might easily be 
 prepared for the Academies of Edinburgh, Dublin, and the principal 
 English manufacturing towns." — See also the similar recommendation 
 with regard to the 'Outlines of John Leech,' in the letter on that 
 subject. 
 
 * Titian's 'Bacchus and Ariadne' — already mentioned, p. 58. 
 Henry VI.'s Psalter is in the British Museum (' Domitian A. 17,' in 
 the Cottonian Catalogue). It is of early fifteenth century work, and 
 was executed in England by a French artist for the then youthful 
 king, from whom it takes its name. 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 LETTERS ON ART. [1880 
 
 From 'The Leicester Chronicle and Mercury,' January 31, and reprinted 
 in 'The Times,' February 2, 1880. 
 
 ON THE PURCHASE OF PICTURES.* 
 
 Dear Sir,^Your letter is deeply interesting to 
 me, but what use is there in my telling you what 
 to do ? The mob won't let you do it. It is 
 fatally true that no one nowadays can appreciate 
 pictures by the Old Masters ! and that every one 
 can understand Frith's 'Derby Day' — that is to 
 say, everybody is interested in jockeys, harlots, 
 mountebanks, and men about town ; but nobody 
 in saints, heroes, kings, or wise men — either from 
 the east or west. What can you do ? If your 
 Committee is strong enough to carry such a reso- 
 lution as the appointment of any smgly responsible 
 person, any well-informed gentleman of taste in 
 your neighbourhood, to buy for the Leicester public 
 just what he would buy for himself — that is to say, 
 himself a7id his family, — children being the really 
 most important of the untaught public, — and to 
 answer simply to all accusation — that is, a good and 
 worthy piece of art — (past or present, no matter 
 which), — make the most and best you can of it. 
 That method so long as tenable will be useful. I 
 know of no other. — Faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN. 
 
 * This letter was written in reply to one requesting Mr. Ruskin's 
 views on the best means of forming a public Gallery at Leicester.
 
 LETTERS ON ART. 
 
 III. 
 
 PRE-RAPHAELITISM. 
 
 THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN. i85i(May9). 
 THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN. i85i(May26). 
 'THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD,' HOLMAN HUNT. 1854. 
 'THE AWAKENING CONSCIENCE,' HOLMAN HUNT. 
 
 1854. 
 PRE-RAPHAELITISM IN LIVERPOOL. 1858. 
 GENERALIZATION and the SCOTCH PRE-RAPHAELITES. 
 
 i8q8.
 
 I
 
 III. 
 
 PRE-RAPHAELITISM. 
 
 From 'The Times,' May 13, 1851. 
 
 THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN. 
 To the Editor of ' The Times. ' 
 
 Sir, — Your usual liberality will, I trust, give a 
 place in your columns to this expression of my 
 regret that the tone of the critique which appeared 
 in Tke Times of Wednesday last on the works of Mr. 
 Millais and Mr. Hunt, now in the Royal Academy, 
 should have been scornful as well as severe.* 
 
 I regret it, first, because the mere labour bestowed 
 on those works, and their fidelity to a certain order 
 of truth, (labour and fidelity which are altogether in- 
 
 * That the critique was sufficiently bitter, may be gathered from the 
 following portions of it: "These young artists have unfortunately 
 become notorious by addicting themselves to an antiquated style and 
 
 an affected simplicity in painting We can extend no toleration 
 
 to a mere senile imitation of the cramped style, false perspective, and 
 ci-ude colour of remote antiquity. We want not to see what Fuseli 
 termed drapery ' snapped instead of folded ' ; faces bloated into apo- 
 plexy, or extenuated to skeletons ; colour borrowed from the jars in 
 
 a druggist's shop, and expression forced into caricature That 
 
 morbid infatuation which sacrifices truth, beauty, and genuine feeling 
 to mere eccentricity, deserves no quarter at the hands of the public."
 
 86 LETTERS ON ART. [1851 
 
 disputable,) ought at once to have placed them above 
 the level of mere contempt ; and, secondly, because 
 I believe these young artists to be at a most critical 
 period of their career — at a turning-point, from 
 which they may either sink into nothingness or rise 
 to very real greatness ; and I believe also, that 
 whether they choose the upward or the downward 
 path, may in no small degree depend upon the 
 character of the criticism which their works have 
 to sustain. I do not wish in any way to dispute or 
 invalidate the general truth of your critique on the 
 Royal Academy; nor am I surprised at the estimate 
 which the writer formed of the pictures in question 
 when rapidly compared with works of totally 
 different style and aim ; nay, when I first saw the 
 chief picture by Millais in the Exhibition of last 
 year,* I had nearly come to the same conclusion 
 myself. But I ask your permission, in justice to 
 artists who have at least given much time and toil 
 to their pictures, to institute some more serious 
 inquiry into their merits and faults than your 
 
 * A sacred picture (No, 518) upon the text, "And one shall say unto 
 him, What are these wounds in thine hands ? Then he shall answer, 
 Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends" 
 (Zechariah xiii. 6). He had two other pictures in the Academy of 
 1850, namely, ' Portrait of a gentleman and his grandchild' (No. 429), 
 and 'Ferdinand lured by Ariel' (No. 504); — Shakspeare, 'Tempest,' 
 Act ii. sc. 2.
 
 1851] THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN. 8/ 
 
 general notice of the Academy could possibly have 
 admitted. 
 
 Let me state, in the first place, that I have no 
 acquaintance with any of these artists, and very 
 imperfect sympathy with them. No one who has 
 met with any of my writings will suspect me of 
 desiring to encourage them in their Romanist and 
 Tractarian tendencies."^ I am glad to see that Mr. 
 Millais' lady in bluef is heartily tired of her painted 
 window and idolatrous toilet table ; and I have no 
 particular respect for Mr. Collins' lady in white, 
 because her sympathies are limited by a dead wall, 
 or divided between some gold fish and a tadpole — 
 (the latter Mr. Collins may, perhaps, permit me to 
 
 * See the next letter, p. 96. With regard to the rehgious tone of 
 some parts of Mr. Ruskin's early writings, it is worth noting that in 
 the recent reissue (1880) of the 'Seven Lamps of Architecture,' "some 
 pieces of rabid and utterly false Protestantism . , . are cut from text and 
 appendix alike." — (Preface, p. I ; and see the note on one such omission on 
 p. 19.) So again in the preface to the final edition of" Modem Painters,' 
 issued in 1873, Mr. Ruskin stated that his objection to republishing 
 unrevised the first two volumes of that work was that " they are written 
 in a narrow enthusiasm, and the substance of their metaphysical and 
 religious speculation is only justifiable on the ground of its absolute 
 sincerity." — See also 'Sesame and Lilies,' 1871 ed., Preface, p. 2. 
 
 t The pre-Raphaelite pictures exhibited in the Academy of this year, 
 and referred to here and in the following letter, were the ' Mariana ' 
 (No. 561) of Millais, ' The Return of the Dove to the Ark' (No. 651), 
 and ' The Woodman's Daughter ' (No. 799), (see Coventry Patmore's 
 Poems, vol. i. p. 184, — 4 vol. ed., 1879), both also by Millais ; the 
 'Valentine receiving (rescuing?) Sylvia from Proteus' (No. 594) of 
 Holman Hunt ; and the ' Convent Thoughts ' (No. 493) of Mr. C.
 
 88 LETTERS ON ART. [1851 
 
 suggest en passarit, as he is already half a frog, 
 is rather too small for his age). But I happen to 
 have a special acquaintance with the water plant, 
 Alisma Plantago, among which the said gold fish 
 are swimming ; and as I never saw it so thoroughly 
 or so well drawn, I must take leave to remonstrate 
 with you, when you say sweepingly that these 
 men ' sacrifice truth as well as feeling to eccen- 
 tricity.' For as a mere botanical study of the 
 water lily and Alisma, as well as of the common 
 lily and several other garden flowers, this picture 
 would be invaluable to me, and I heartily wish it 
 were mine. 
 
 But, before entering into such particulars, let me 
 correct an impression which your article is likely to 
 induce in most minds, and which is altogether false. 
 These pre-Raphaelites (I cannot compliment them 
 on common sense in choice of a 7ioin de guerre) 
 
 Collins, to which were affixed the lines from ' Midsummer Night's 
 
 Dream' (Act i. sc. i), 
 
 " Thrice blessed they, that master so their blood 
 To undergo such maiden pilgrimage ; " 
 
 and the verse (Psalm cxliii. 5), "I meditate on all Thy works ; I muse 
 on the work of Thy hands. " The last-named artist also had a portrait 
 of Mr. William Bennett (No. 718) in the Exhibition, — not, however, 
 alluded to in this letter. Mr. Charles Allston Collins, who was the 
 son of William Collins, R.A., and the younger brother of Mr. Wilkie 
 Collins, subsequently turned his attention to literature, and may be 
 remembered as the author of 'A Cruise upon Wheels,' 'The Eye- 
 Witness,' and other writings. 
 
 41
 
 iSsi] THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN. 89 
 
 do not desire nor pretend in any way to imitate 
 antique painting as such. They know very little o^ 
 ancient paintings who suppose the works of these 
 young artists to resemble them * As far as I can 
 judge of their aim — for, as I said, I do not know 
 the men themselves — the Pre-Raphaelites intend 
 to surrender no advantage which the knowledge 
 or inventions of the present time can afford to 
 their art. They intend to return to early days 
 in this one point only — that, as far as in them 
 lies, they will draw either what they see, or what 
 they suppose might have been the actual facts 
 of the scene they desire to represent, irrespective 
 of any conventional rules of picture-making ; and 
 they have chosen their unfortunate though not 
 inaccurate name because all artists did this before 
 Raphael's time, and after Raphael's time did not 
 this, but sought to paint fair pictures, rather than 
 represent stern facts ; of which the consequence 
 has been that, from Raphael's time to this day, 
 historical art has been in acknowledged decadence. 
 
 * Compare 'Modern Painters,' vol. i. p. 415, note, where allusion is 
 made to the painters of a society which "unfortunately, or rather un- 
 wisely, has given itself the name of 'Pre-Raphaelite' ; unfortunately, 
 because the principles on which its members are working are neither 
 pre- nor post-Raphaelite, but everlasting. They are endeavouring to 
 paint with the highest possible degree of completion, what they see 
 in nature, without reference to conventional established rules ; but by 
 no means to imitate the style of any past epoch. "
 
 90 LETTERS ON ART, [185 1 
 
 Now, sir, presupposing that the intention of these 
 men was to return to archaic art instead of to 
 archaic honesty, your critic borrows Fuseli's expres- 
 sion respecting ancient draperies ' snapped instead 
 of folded,' and asserts that in these pictures there 
 is a 'servile imitation of false perspective.' To 
 which I have just this to answer : — 
 
 That there is not one single error in perspective 
 in four out of the five pictures in question ; and 
 that in Millais' ' Mariana' there is but this one — 
 that the top of the green curtain in the distant 
 window has too low a vanishing-point ; and that I 
 will undertake, if need be, to point out and prove 
 a dozen worse errors in perspective in any twelve 
 pictures, containing architecture, taken at random 
 from among the works of the popular painters of 
 the day. 
 
 Secondly : that, putting aside the small Mulready, 
 and the works of Thorburn and Sir W. Ross, and 
 perhaps some others of those in the miniature room 
 which I have not examined, there is not a single 
 study of drapery in the whole Academy, be it 
 in large works or small, which for perfect truth, 
 power, and finish could be compared for an instant 
 with the black sleeve of the Julia, or with the velvet 
 on the breast and the chain mail of the Valentine, 
 of Mr. Hunt's picture ; or with the white draperies 
 
 1
 
 1851] THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN. 9 1 
 
 on the table of Mr. Millais' ' Mariana,' and of the 
 right-hand figure in the same painter's ' Dove re- 
 turning to the Ark.' 
 
 And further : that as studies both of drapery and 
 of every minor detail, there has been nothing in art 
 so earnest or so complete as these pictures since the 
 ^lays of Albert Durer. This I assert generally and 
 fearlessly. On the other hand, I am perfectly ready 
 to admit that Mr. Hunt's ' Sylvia ' is not a person 
 whom Proteus or any one else would have been 
 likely to fall in love with at first sight ; and that 
 one cannot feel very sincere delight that Mr. Millais' 
 * Wives of the Sons of Noah ' should have escaped 
 the Deluge ; with many other faults besides on which 
 I will not enlarge at present, because I have already 
 occupied too much of your valuable space, and I 
 hope to enter into more special criticism in a future 
 letter. 
 
 I have the honour to be. Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant. 
 The Author of ' Modern Painters.' 
 
 Denmark Hill, May 9.
 
 92 LETTERS ON ART. [1851 
 
 From 'The Times,' May 30, 185 1. 
 
 THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN. 
 
 To the Editor of ' The Times, ' 
 
 Sir, — Your obliging insertion of my former letter 
 encourages me to trouble you with one or two 
 further notes respecting the pre-Raphaelite pictures. 
 I had intended, in continuation of my first letter, 
 to institute as close an inquiry as I could into the 
 character of the morbid tendencies which prevent 
 these works from favourably arresting the attention 
 of the public ; but I believe there are so few pictures 
 in the Academy whose reputation would not be 
 grievously diminished by a deliberate inventory of 
 their errors, that I am disinclined to undertake 
 so ungracious a task with respect to this or that 
 particular work. These points, however, may be 
 noted, partly for the consideration of the painters 
 themselves, partly that forgiveness of them may 
 be asked from the public in consideration of high 
 merits in other respects. 
 
 The most painful of these defects is unhappily 
 also the most prominent — the commonness of feature 
 in many of the principal figures. In Mr. Hunt's 
 ' Valentine defending Sylvia,' this is, indeed, almost 
 the only fault. Further examination of this picture 
 has even raised the estimate I had previously formed
 
 1851] THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN. 93 
 
 of its marvellous truth in detail and splendour in 
 colour ; nor is its general conception less deserving 
 of praise : the action of Valentine, his arm thrown 
 round Sylvia, and his hand clasping hers at the 
 same instant as she falls at his feet, is most faithful 
 and beautiful, nor less so the contending of doubt 
 and distress with awakening hope in the half- 
 shadowed, half-sunlit countenance of Julia. Nay, 
 even the momentary struggle of Proteus with Sylvia 
 just past, is indicated by the trodden grass and 
 broken fungi of the foreground. But all this 
 thoughtful conception, and absolutely inimitable 
 execution, fail in making immediate appeal to the 
 feelings, owing to the unfortunate type chosen for 
 the face of Sylvia. Certainly this cannot be she 
 whose lover was 
 
 "As rich in having such a jewel, 
 As twenty seas, if all their sands were pearl." * 
 
 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 
 
 * 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' Act ii. sc. 4. The scene of the 
 picture was taken from Act v. sc. 4.
 
 94 LETTERS ON ART. [1851 
 
 previous scenes will, I think, be disposed to con- 
 sider 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 delibe- 
 rately 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 colour 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 by, 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 remark- 
 able distinctions between their painting and that 
 of Van Eyck or Hemling, which caused me to say
 
 1851] THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN. 95 
 
 in my first letter that " those knew Httle of ancient 
 painting who supposed the works of these men to 
 resemble it." 
 
 Next to this false choice of feature, and in con- 
 nection with it, is to be noted the defect in the 
 colouring 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 unfavourable to flesh painting ; it was noticed 
 of the drawing by John Lewis, in the old water- 
 colour exhibition of 1850,* (a work which, as 
 regards its 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 Hhareem ' (No. 147), noticed, partly to the above effect, in 
 The Times, May I, 1850. It will be remembered that John Lewis 
 is, with Turner, Millais, Prout, Mulready, and Edwin Landseer, one 
 of the artists particularly mentioned in Mr. Ruskin's pamphlet on 
 ' Pre-Raphaelitism' (185 1), p. 2)}^', and see also 'Academy Notes,' 
 IIL, 1857, p.48.
 
 96 LETTERS ON ART. [1851 
 
 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 endeavours 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 any- 
 thing of the kind ; whereupon, all I can say is that, 
 instead of the "pilgrimage" of Mr. Collins' maiden 
 over a plank and round a fish-pond, that old pilgrim- 
 age 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
 
 1851] THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BRETHREN. 97 
 
 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 dis- 
 cretion in framing it, and if they do not suffer them- 
 selves 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 a 
 school of art nobler than the world has seen for 
 three hundred years.* 
 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 The Author of ' Modern Painters.' 
 
 Denmark Hill, May 26. 
 
 * "I have great hope that they may become the foundation of a 
 more earnest and able school of art than we have seen for centuries. " 
 — 'Modern Painters,' vol. i. p, 415, note. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 98 LETTERS ON ART. [1854 
 
 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 Prae- 
 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.* 
 
 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 
 
 * Of the two pictures described in this and the following letter, 
 ' The Light of the World ' is well known from the engraving of it by 
 W. H. Simmons. It was originally purchased by Mr. Thomas Combe, 
 of Oxford, whose widow has recently presented it to Keble College, 
 where it now hangs, in the library. The subject of the second 
 picture, which is less well known, and which has never been engraved, 
 sufficiently appears from the letter describing it.
 
 1854] 'THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.' 99 
 
 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 Prae-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 labour 
 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.
 
 lOO LETTERS ON ART. [1854 
 
 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 displays past sin, and after- 
 wards 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
 
 1854] 'THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.' lOI 
 
 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, rs that of the hope of 
 salvation ; it springs from the crown of thorns, 
 and, though itself sad, subdued, and full of soft- 
 ness, 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
 
 102 LETTERS ON ART. [1854 
 
 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 Prae-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 colour ; 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 colour, 
 but it has two or three distinctly varied shades of 
 green in it, giving it mysterious value and lustre. 
 
 The spurious imitations of Prae-Raphaelite work 
 represent the most minute leaves and other objects 
 with sharp outlines, but with no variety of colour,
 
 1854] "THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.' 1 03 
 
 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, Dearie, No. 191, "Evening, on the 
 Marchno, North Wales."* 
 
 I have the honour to be. Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 The Author of * Modern Painters.' 
 
 Denmark Hill, May 4, 
 
 * Mr. Dearie informs me that this picture was bought from the 
 walls of the Academy by a prize-holder in the Art Union of London. 
 He adds that the purchaser resided in either America or Australia, 
 and that the picture is now, therefore, presumably in one or other 
 of those countries.
 
 I04 LETTERS ON ART. [1854 
 
 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 misunder- 
 stood. 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 possessing 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
 
 1854] 'THE AWAKENING CONSCIENCE.' 105 
 
 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 on a truer prin- 
 ciple 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.
 
 I06 LETTERS ON ART. [1854 
 
 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 new- 
 ness ; 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 laboured 
 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." * 
 
 I surely need not go on. Examine the whole 
 range of the walls of the Academy, — nay, examine 
 
 * Shenstone : Elegy xxvi. The subject of the poem is that of the 
 picture described here. The girl speaks, — 
 
 " If through the gaixlen's flowery tribes I stray. 
 Where bloom the jasmines that could once allure, 
 Hope not," etc.
 
 i8S4] 'THE AWAKENING CONSCIENCE.' 10/ 
 
 those of all our public and 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 honour to be. Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 The Author of ' Modern Painters.' 
 
 Denmark Hill.
 
 I08 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 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 con- 
 dition 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 
 
 * The prize of the Liverpool Academy was awarded in 1858 to 
 Millais's ' Blind Girl.' Popular feeling, however, favoured another pic- 
 ture, the 'Waiting for the Verdict' of A. Solomon, and a good deal 
 of discussion arose as to whether the prize had been rightly awarded. 
 As one of the judges, and as a member of the Academy, Mr. Alfred 
 Hunt addi-essed a letter on the matter to Mr. Ruskin, the main portion 
 of whose reply was sent by him to the Liverpool Albion and is now 
 reprinted here. Mr. Solomon's picture had been exhibited in the Royal 
 Academy of 1857 (No. 562), and is mentioned in Mr. Ruskin's Notes 
 to the pictures of that year (p. 32).
 
 iSsS] PRE-RAPHAELITISM IX LIVERPOOL. IO9 
 
 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 quarrel ; let the Liverpool 
 
 people buy whatever rubbish they have a mind to ; 
 
 and when they see, as in time they will, that it 
 
 is rubbish, 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 will itot end in discomfiture. I suppose I need 
 
 hardly say anything of my own estimate of the two 
 
 pictures on which the arbitrement has arisen. I 
 
 have surely saidX^ften 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 least t/wee of any other pictures whatever by 
 
 living artists. 
 
 John Ruskin.
 
 no LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 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-RaphaeHte Brothers in the Witness* 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 the Scotsman, which you took 
 the pains to answer, have been answered ten thou- 
 sand times already, without the smallest effect, — the 
 
 * The defence was made in a second notice (March 6, 1858) of the 
 Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy, then open to the pubhc. 
 The picture of Mr. Waller Paton (now R.S.A.) alluded to here 
 was entitled 'Wild Water, Inveruglass ' (161); he also exhibited one 
 of 'Arrochar Road, Tarbet ' (314). The platitudes of the Scotsman 
 af^ainst the pre-Raphaelites were contained in its second notice of the 
 Exhibition (February 20, 1858).
 
 1858] THE SCOTCH PRE-RAPHAELITES. I I I 
 
 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 generaliza- 
 tion 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 esti- 
 mates, — night-lights, in fact, extinguishing them- 
 selves, 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,* 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 too much into their pictures — 
 for love's sake, and then not to bring this much 
 
 * There must be some error here, as it is the true dreams that come 
 through the horn gate, while the fruitless ones pass through the gate of 
 ivory. The allusion is to Homer (Odyssey, xix. 562).
 
 112 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 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 
 honourable as blunders ; they are mere emptinesses 
 and idlenesses, — thistledown without seeds, and 
 bubbles without colour ; whereas the worst pre- 
 Raphaelite picture has something in it ; and the 
 great ones, such as Windus's " Burd Helen," * will 
 
 * In illustration of the old Scottish ballad of 'Burd Helen,' who, 
 fearing her lover's desertion, followed him, dressed as a foot-page, 
 through flood, if not through fire : — 
 
 " Lord John he rode, Burd Helen ran, 
 The live-lang sumer's day. 
 Until they cam' to Clyde's Water, 
 Was filled frae bank to brae. 
 
 ' See'st thou yon water, Helen,' quoth he, 
 
 ' That flows frae bank to brim ? ' 
 ' I trust to God, Lord John, ' she said, 
 
 ' You ne'er will see me swim.' " 
 
 This picture (No. 141 in the Edinburgh Exhibition of 1858) was first 
 exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1856. In the postscript to his 
 Academy Notes of that year, Mr. Ruskin, after commenting on the 
 "crying error of putting it nearly out of sight," so that he had at first 
 hardly noticed it, estimates this picture as second only to the ' Autumn 
 Leaves' of Mr. Millais in that exhibition. The following is a portion 
 of his comment on it : "I see just enough of the figures to make
 
 i8s8] THE SCOTCH PRE-RAPHAELITES. I I 3 
 
 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 
 
 me sure that the work is thoughtful and intense in the highest degree. 
 The pressure of the girl's hand on her side ; her wild, firm, deso- 
 late look at the stream — she not raising her eyes as she makes her 
 appeal, for fear of the greater mercilessness in the human look than 
 in the glaze of the gliding water — the just choice of the type of the 
 rider's cruel face, and of the scene itself — so terrible in haggardness 
 of rattling stones and ragged heath, — are all marks of the action of 
 the very grandest imaginative power, shortened only of hold upon our 
 feelings, because dealing with a subject too fearful to be for a moment 
 believed tnie." 
 
 The picture was originally purchased by Mr. John Miller, of 
 Liverpool ; at the sale of whose collection by Christie and Manson, 
 two years later, in 1858, it fetched the price of two hundred guineas. 
 At the same sale the ' Blind Girl, ' alluded to in the previous letter, 
 was sold for three hundred. 
 
 For the poem illustrated by the picture, see Aytoun's ' Ballads of 
 Scotland,' i. 239, where a slightly different version of it is given : it may 
 also be found in 'Percy's Reliques' (vol. iii. p. 59), under the title of 
 'Child Waters.' Other versions of this ballad, and other ballads of 
 the same name, and probably origin, may be found in Jameson's col- 
 lection, vol. i. p. 117, vol. ii. p. 376, in Buchan's 'Ancient Ballads of the 
 North,' ii. 29 (1879 ed.), and in 'Four Books of Scottish Ballads,' 
 Edin., 1868, Bk. ii. p. 21, where it is well noted that ' Burd Helen' 
 corresponds to the ' Proud Elise ' of northern minstrels, ' La Prude 
 Dame Elise' of the French, and the 'Gentle Lady Elise' of the English 
 — (Burd, Prud, Preux). It is also possible that it is a corruption of- 
 Burdalayn, or Burdalane, meaning an only child, a maiden, etc. 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 have been a better conceit, I grant you ; * 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 Witfiess had objected to the "astonishing fondness" of the 
 pre-Raphaehte school for 'conceits,' instancing as typically far-fetched 
 that in the picture of ' Burd Helen,' where Lord John was represented 
 ' pulling to pieces a heartsease,' as he crosses the stream.
 
 LETTERS ON ART 
 
 IV. 
 TURNER. 
 
 THE TURNER BEQUEST. 1856. 
 
 THE TURNER BEQUEST AND THE NATIONAL 
 
 GALLERY. 1S57. 
 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.
 
 IV. 
 TURNER. 
 
 From ' The Times,' October 28, 1856. 
 
 THE TURNER BEQUEST. 
 To the Editor of ' The Times. ' 
 
 Sir, — As active measures are being now* taken 
 to give the public access to the pictures and draw- 
 ings 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 exe- 
 cutors. 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 
 
 * The first exhibition of Turner's pictures after his death was opened 
 at Marlborough House early in November 1856, seven months subse- 
 quent to the final decision as to the proper distribution of the property, 
 which was the subject of Turner's will.
 
 Il8 LETTERS ON ART. [1856 
 
 property, and respecting these the pubHc will, I think, 
 be glad of more definite information than they at 
 present possess. They are referable mainly to three 
 classes. 
 
 1. Finished water-colour drawings. 
 
 2. Studies from nature, or first thoughts for 
 
 pictures ; in colour. 
 
 3. Sketches in pencil or pen and ink. 
 
 The drawings belonging to the two latter classes 
 are in various stages of completion, and would con- 
 tain, 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-colour 
 drawings. There are in the first class forty-five 
 drawings of the "Rivers of France;" fifty-seven illus- 
 trating Rogers' Poems ; twenty-three of the " River 
 Scenery" and " Harbours 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.
 
 1S56] THE TURNER BEQUEST. 119 
 
 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 coloured ones. They consist of 
 studies from nature, or for composition, in firm out- 
 line, 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 expla- 
 nation ; 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 in the coloured studies many hues are wrought 
 out by singular means and with singular delicacy —
 
 I20 LETTERS ON ART. [1856 
 
 nearly always in textures which the slightest damp 
 (to which the drawings would necessarily be sub- 
 jected in the process of mounting) would assuredly 
 alter. I have made many experiments in mounting, 
 putting coloured 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 connexion. Thus there are three pro- 
 gressive studies for one vignette in Rogers' Italy*' 
 (Hannibal passing the Alps), which I extricated from 
 three several heaps of other mountain sketches with 
 which they had no connexion. Thirdly, a large 
 number of the drawings are executed with body 
 colour, the bloom of which any friction or handling 
 would in a short period destroy. Their delicate 
 * See Rogers' ' Italy,' p. 29.
 
 1856] THE TURNER BEQUEST. 12 1 
 
 tones of colour would be equally destroyed by con- 
 tinuous exposure to the light or to smoke and 
 dust. 
 
 Drawings of a valuable character, when thus 
 destructible, are in European museums hardly ac- 
 cessible to the general public. But there is no 
 need for this seclusion. They should be enclosed 
 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; 
 fifteen frames going into the depth of about a foot. 
 Men are usually accused of "bad taste," if they ex- 
 press 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
 
 122 LETTERS ON ART. [1856 
 
 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 explana- 
 tory catalogue, and ready for public inspection. It 
 would then be in the power of the commissioners 
 entrusted 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 interest- 
 ing 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 entrusted to me ; but I should 
 ask the advice of Mr. Carpenter, of the British 
 Museum,* on all doubtful points, and entrust any 
 necessary operations only to the person who mounts 
 the drawings for the British Museum. 
 
 I make this offer f in your columns rather than 
 privately, first, because I wish it to be clearly known 
 
 * William Hookham Carpenter, for many years Keeper of the prints 
 and drawings at the British Museum. He died in 1866. 
 
 f Mr. Ruskin's offer was accepted, and he eventually arranged the 
 drawings, and, in particular, the four hundred now exhibited in one of 
 the lower rooms of the National Gallery, and contained in the kind 
 of cases above proposed, presented by Mr. Ruskin to the Gallery. Mr.
 
 
 <A-*^ 
 
 
 -^ 

 
 1S56] THE TURNER BEQUEST. I 23 
 
 to the public ; and 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. 
 
 Ruskin also printed, as promised, a descriptive and explanatory cata- 
 logue of a hundred of these four hundred drawings. (Catalogue of the 
 Turner Sketches in the National Gallery. For private circulation. 
 Part I. 1857. — Only one hundred copies printed, and no further parts 
 issued.) 
 
 Writing (1858) to Mr. Norton of his whole work in arranging the 
 Turner drawings, Mr. Ruskin said : — "To show you a little what my 
 work has been, I have fac-similed for you, as nearly as I could, one 
 of the nineteen thousand sketches (comprised in the Turner bequest). 
 It, like most of them, is not a sketch, but a group of sketches, made 
 on both sides of the leaf of the note-book. The note-books vary in 
 contents from sixty to ninety leaves : there are about two hundred 
 books of the kind, — three hundred and odd note-books in all ; and 
 each leaf has on an average this quantity of work, a great many leaves 
 being slighter, some blank, but a great many also elaborate in the 
 highest degree, some containing ten exquisite compositions on each side 
 of the leaf, thus, (see facsimile,) each no bigger than this, — and with 
 about that quantity of work in each, but every touch of it inestimable, 
 done with his whole soul in it. Generally the slighter sketches are 
 written over it everywhere, as in the example enclosed, every incident 
 being noted that was going on at the moment of the sketch." — (' List 
 of Turner's Drawings shown in connection with Mr. Norton's Lectures.' 
 Boston: 1874. p. 11.) The facsimile alluded to by Mr. Norton is 
 reproduced here.
 
 124 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 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* 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 } | 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 labour and judgment which he has shown 
 in compiling, not only this, but all the various cata- 
 logues now used by the public at our galleries, will 
 
 * July 3, 1857, upon the vote of ^23, 165 for the National Gallery. 
 
 \ The late Mr. Ralph Nicholson Wornum, who succeeded Mr. 
 Uwins as Keeper of the National Gallery in 1855, and retained that 
 office till his death in 1878.
 
 i857] THE TURNER BEQUEST. I 25 
 
 be at all justly appreciated. I find more real, service- 
 able, 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 resi- 
 dence in Venice I have carefully examined the 
 Paul Veronese lately purchased by the Government.* 
 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 
 
 * ' The Family of Darius at the feet of Alexander after the Battle 
 of Issus,' purchased at Venice from the Pisani collection in 1857. 
 Lord Elcho had complained in the course of the debate that the 
 price, ;^I3,650, paid for this picture, had been excessive; and in reply 
 allusion was made to the still higher price (;^23,ooo) paid for the 
 ' Immaculate Conception ' of Murillo, purchased for the Louvre by 
 Napoleon III., in 1852, from the collection of Marshal Soult. — Of the 
 great Veronese Mr. Ruskin also wrote thus : ' It at once, to my mind, 
 raises our National Gallery from a second-rate to a fii-st-rate collection. 
 I have always loved the master, and given much time to the study of 
 his works, but this is the best I have ever seen." (Turner Notes, 1857, 
 ed. v., p. 89, note.) So again before the National Gallery Commission, 
 earlier in the same year, he had said, " I am rejoiced to hear (of its 
 rumoured purchase). If it is confirmed, nothing will have given me 
 such pleasure for a long time. I think it is the most precious Paul 
 Veronese in the world, as far as the completeness of the picture goes, 
 and quite a priceless picture."
 
 126 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 will appear to most persons at all acquainted 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, July 7.
 
 1858J TURNER SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS. 12/ 
 
 From 'The Literary Gazette,' November 13, 1858, — (partly reprinted 
 in ' The Two Paths,' Appendix iv.) 
 
 THE TURNER SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS.* 
 
 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 col- 
 lection 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 
 candour 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 on by 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 
 
 * The present letter was written in reply to a criticism, contained 
 in the Literary Gazette of November 6, 1858, on Mr. Ruskin's 
 "Catalogue of the Turner Sketches and Drawings exhibited at 
 Marlborough House 1857-8." The subjects of complaint made by 
 the Gazette, sufficiently appear from this letter. They were, briefly, 
 first, the mode of exhibition of the Turner Dra\vings proposed by 
 Mr. Ruskin in his official report already alluded to, pp. 78 and 80, 
 note ; and, secondly, two alleged hyperboles and one omission in the 
 Catalogue itself.
 
 128 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 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 paint- 
 ings at Marlborough House, comprising as they do 
 the most splendid works which Turner ever pro- 
 duced, 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 
 
 f
 
 i8s8] TURNER SKETCHES Ax\D DRAWINGS. I 29 
 
 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 dispo- 
 sition of these drawings . will be at once the most 
 convenient and the most just, even supposing that 
 the finest works of Turner w^ould not be injured 
 by constant exposure. But that they would be so 
 admits of no debate. It is not on my judgment, 
 nor on any other 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 ex- 
 posed, the covered portion is still rich and lovely 
 in colours, while the exposed spaces are reduced in 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 I30 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 some parts nearly to white paper, and the colour 
 in general to a dull brown. 
 
 You allude to the contrary chance that some 
 hues may be injured by darkness. I believe that 
 some colours are indeed liable to darken in per- 
 petual 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 per- 
 petual shade, as yet demonstrable with respect to 
 the Turner drawings ; on the contrary, those which 
 now form the great body of the national col- 
 lection 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.* 
 That water-colours are not injured by darkness is 
 also sufficiently proved by the exquisite preservation 
 
 * The cloud-forms which have disappeared from the 
 drawings may be seen in the engravings.
 
 1858] TURNER SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS. I31 
 
 of missal paintings, when the books containing them 
 have been httle 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 at leisure, in a comfortable room, under such 
 limitations as will preserve them to you for ever, 
 or will you make an amusing exhibition of them 
 (z/" amusing, 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 labour. 
 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 wxre maps in relief of hill
 
 132 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 countries ; hung, in fine, in every conceivable mode 
 that can exhibit their faults, or conceal their mean- 
 ing, 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 illus- 
 trative engravings and explanations be put in cases 
 near them ; furnish the 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.
 
 185S] TURNER SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS. 1 33 
 
 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* 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 enclose game, stable walls to separate horses, and 
 garden walls to ripen peaches ; and if we could compare 
 this ascertained sum \\dth what it pays for walls to show its 
 art upon." 
 
 * ' Notes on the oil pictures,' to be distinguished from the later 
 catalogue of the Turner sketches and drawings with which this letter 
 directly deals. See ante, p. 127, note.
 
 134 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 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 gentle- 
 men'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, without 
 counting mere colour 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,* which are just as interesting as 
 those now exhibited at Marlborough House ; and 
 which might be constantly exhibited, like those, 
 
 * By the way, you really ought to have given me some 
 credit for the swivel frames in the desks of Marlborough 
 House, which enable the public, however rough-handed, 
 to see the drawings on both sides of the same leaf.t 
 
 f The identical frames, each containing examples of the sketches in 
 pencil outline to which the letter alludes, may be seen in the windows 
 of the lower rooms of the National Gallery, now devoted to the exhi- 
 bition of the Turner drawings.
 
 1858] TURNER SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS. I35 
 
 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* 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 other- 
 wise 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 i8oth page 
 of Rogers's poems, t in which the face of the figure, 
 from the chin to the top of the brow, occupies 
 just a quarter of an inch, and the space between 
 
 * The rest of this letter may, with the exception of its two last 
 paragraphs, and the slight alterations noted, be also found in ' The 
 Two Paths,' Appendix iv., ' Subtlety of Hand' (pp. 226-9 of 'he new, 
 and pp. 263-6 of the original edition), where the words bracketed 
 [sic] in this reprint of it are, it will be seen, omitted. 
 
 t From a vignette design by Stothard of a single figure, to illustrate 
 the poem ' On a Tear.' (Rogers' Poems, London, 1834 ed.)
 
 136 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 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 suffi- 
 ciently 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, gra- 
 dations 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 autho- 
 ritative 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 sue-
 
 1858] TURNER SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS. I 37 
 
 cessions of measured and tested refinement ; here is 
 No. I : 
 
 "The finest mechanical work that I know of is that 
 done by Nobert in the way of ruling lines. I have a 
 series of lines ruled by him on glass, giving actual scales 
 from '000024 S'Wd "000016 of an inch, perfectly correct to 
 these places of decimals ; [*] and he has executed others 
 as fine as •000012, though I do not know how far he 
 could repeat these last with accuracy." 
 
 This is No. i, of precision. Mr. Kingsley pro- 
 ceeds to No. 2 : 
 
 " But this is rude work compared to the accuracy 
 necessary for the construction of the object-glass of a 
 microscope such as Rosse turns out." 
 
 I am sorry to omit the explanation which follows 
 of the ten lenses composing such a glass, " each of 
 which must be exact in radius and in surface, and 
 all have their axes coincident ;" but it would not be 
 intelligible without the figure by which it is illus- 
 trated, so I pass to Mr. Kingsley 's No. 3 : 
 
 "I am tolerably familiar," he proceeds, "with the actual 
 grinding and polishing of lenses and specula, and have 
 produced by my own hands some by no means bad optical 
 work ; and I have copied no small amount of Turner's 
 work, and I still look with awe at the combined delicacy 
 and precision of his hand ; // beats optical work out of 
 
 [* That is to say, accurate in measures estimated in 
 millionths of inches.]
 
 138 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 sig/tt* In optical work, as in refined drawing, the hand 
 goes beyond the eye, [t] and one has to depend upon the 
 feel ; and when one has once learned what a delicate 
 affair touch is, one gets a horror of all coarse work, and 
 is ready to forgive any amount of feebleness, sooner than 
 the boldness which is akin to impudence. In optics the 
 distinction is easily seen when the work is put to trial ; 
 but here too, as in drawing, it requires an educated eye 
 to tell the difference when the work is only moderately 
 bad ; but with * bold ' work nothing can be seen but 
 distortion and fog, and I heartily wish the same result 
 would follow the same kind of handling in drawing; but 
 here, the boldness cheats the unlearned by looking like 
 the precision of the true man. It is very strange how 
 much better our ears are than our eyes in this country : if 
 an ignorant man were to be 'bold' with a violin, he would 
 not get many admirers, though his boldness was far below 
 that of ninety-nine out of a hundred drawings one sees." 
 
 [t In case any of your readers should question the 
 use, in drawing, of work too fine for the touches to be 
 individually, I quote a sentence from my ' Elements of 
 Drawing.' J "^//fine colouring, like fine drawing, is deli- 
 cate ; so delicate, that if at last you see the colour you 
 are putting on, you are putting on too much. You ought 
 to feel a change wrought in the general tone by touches 
 which are individually too pale to be seen."] 
 
 * Doubly emphasized in ' The Two Paths, ' where the words are 
 printed thus : ^^ I still look zuit/i awe at the combined delicacy and pre- 
 cision of his hand; IT BEATS OPTICAL WORK OUT OF SIGHT." 
 
 \ See the ' Elements of Drawing,' Letter IIL on Colour and 
 Composition, p. 232.
 
 1858] TURNER SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS. I 39 
 
 The words which I have itaHcized* in the above 
 extract are those which were surprising to me. I 
 knew that Turner's was as refined as any optical 
 work, but had no idea of its going beyond it. 
 Mr. Kingsley's word " awe," occurring just before, 
 is, however, as I have often felt, precisely the 
 right one. When once we begin at all to under- 
 stand the work of any truly great executor, such as 
 that of any of the three great Venetians [(Tintoret, 
 Titian, and Veronese)], Correggio, or Turner, the 
 awe of it is something greater than can be felt 
 from the most stupendous natural scenery. For 
 the creation of such a system as a high human 
 intelligence, endowed with its ineffably perfect 
 instruments of eye and hand, is a far more 
 appalling manifestation of Infinite Power than the 
 making either of seas or mountains. After this 
 testimony to the completion of Turner's work, I 
 need not at length defend myself from the charge 
 of hyperbole in the statement that, "as far as I 
 know, the galleries of Europe may be challenged 
 to produce one sketch t that shall equal the chalk 
 
 * 'The Two Paths' reprint has "put in italics." 
 
 t The following note is here added to the reprint in ' The Two 
 Paths' : — "A sketch, observe, — not a printed drawing. Sketches are 
 only proper subjects of comparison with each other when they contain 
 about the same quantity of work : the test of their merit is the quantity 
 of truth told with a given number of touches. The assertion in the
 
 140 LETTERS ON ART, [1858 
 
 study No. 45, or the feeblest of the memoranda in 
 the 71st and following frames;"* which memoranda, 
 however, it should have been observed, are stated 
 at the forty-fourth page to be in some respects 
 " the grandest work in grey that he did in his 
 life." 
 
 For I believe that, as manipulators, none but 
 the four men whom I have just named (the three 
 Venetians and Correggio) were equal to Turner ; 
 and, as far as I know, none of these four men put 
 their full strength into sketches. But whether they 
 did or not, my statement in the Catalogue is limited 
 by my own knowledge, and as far as I can trust 
 that knowledge : it is not an enthusiastic statement, 
 but an entirely calm and considered one. It may 
 be a mistake, but it is not an hyperbole. 
 
 Lastly, you object that the drawings for the 
 ''Liber Studionmi" are not included in my cata- 
 logue. They are not so, because I did not consider 
 them as, in a true sense, drawings at all ; they are 
 
 Catalogue which this letter was written to defend was made respecting 
 the sketch of Rome, No. loi." 
 
 * No. 45 was a ' Study of a Cutter.' Mr. Ruskin's note to it in 
 the Catalogue is partly as follows : "I have never seen any chalk 
 sketch which for a moment could be compared with this for soul 
 and power. ... I should think that the power of it would be felt by 
 most people ; but if not, let those who do not feel its strength, try 
 to copy it." See the Catalogue under No. 45, as also under No. 71, 
 referred to above.
 
 1858] TURNER SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS. I4I 
 
 merely washes of colour laid roughly to guide the 
 mezzotint engraver in his first process ; the drawing, 
 properly so called, was all put in by Turner when 
 he etched the plates, or superadded by repeated 
 touchings on the proofs. These brown " guides," 
 — for they are nothing more, are entirely unlike 
 the painter's usual work, and in every way inferior 
 to it ; so that students wishing to understand the 
 composition of the " Liber''' must always work from 
 the plates, and not from these first indications of 
 purpose/'' I have put good impressions of two of 
 the plates in the same room, in order to show their 
 superiority ; and for the rest, thought it useless to 
 increase the bulk of the Catalogue by naming sub- 
 
 * In a letter to Mr. Norton written in the same year as this one 
 to the Literary Gazette, Mr. Ruskin thus speaks of the vaUie of these 
 plates : — "Even those who know most of art may at first look be 
 disappointed with the Liber Studiorum. For the nobleness of 
 these designs is not more in what is done than in what is not done 
 in them. Every touch in these plates is related to every other, and 
 has no permission of withdrawn, monastic virtue, but is only good 
 in its connection with the rest, and in that connection infinitely and 
 inimitably good. The showing how each of these designs is connected 
 by all manner of strange intellectual chords and nerves with the 
 pathos and history of this old English country of ours, and with the 
 history of European mind from earliest mythology down to modern 
 rationalism and irrationalism, — all this was what I meant to try 
 and show in my closing work ; but long before that closing I felt 
 it to be impossible." — (Extract from a letter of Mr. Ruskin, 1858, 
 quoted in the 'List of Turner Drawings, etc.,' already mentioned, 
 p. 6.)
 
 142 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 jects which have been pubHshed and well known 
 these thirty years.* 
 
 Permit me, in conclusion, to thank you for 
 drawing attention to the subject of this great 
 national collection ; and, again asking your indulg- 
 ence for trespassing so far upon your space, to 
 subscribe myself, 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
 * The Literary Gazette of November 20, 1858, contains a reply to 
 this letter, but as it did not provoke a further letter from Mr. Ruskin, 
 it is not noticed in detail here.
 
 1859] TURNER GALLERY AT KENSINGTON. 1 43 
 
 From 'The Times,' October 21, 1S59. 
 
 THE TURNER GALLERY AT KENSINGTON.* 
 To the Editor of 'The Times. ^ 
 
 Sir, — At the time of my departure for the Conti- 
 nent some months ago I had heard it was proposed 
 to light the Turner Gallery, at Kensington, with gas ; 
 but I attached no importance to the rumour, feeling 
 assured that a commission would be appointed on 
 the subject, and that its decision would be adverse 
 to the mode of exhibition suggested. 
 
 Such a commission has, I find, been appointed ; 
 and has, contrary to my expectations, approved and 
 confirmed the plan of lighting proposed. 
 
 It would be the merest presumption in me to 
 expect weight to be attached to any opinion of 
 mine, opposed to that of any one of the gentle- 
 men who formed the commission ; but as I was 
 officially employed in some of the operations con- 
 nected with the arrangement of the Turner Gallery 
 at Marlborough-house, and as it might therefore be 
 supposed by the public that I at least concurred in 
 
 * There was at the date of this and the following letter an exhi- 
 bition of Turner drawings at the South Kensington Museum. These 
 pictures have, however, been since removed to the National Gallery, 
 and the only works of Turner now at Kensington are some half a 
 dozen oil paintings belonging to the Sheepshanks collection, and about 
 the same number of water-colour drawings, which form part of the 
 historical series of British water-colour paintings.
 
 144 LETTERS ON ART. [1859 
 
 recommending the measures now taken for exhi- 
 bition of the Turner pictures in the evening, at 
 Kensington, I must beg your permission to state in 
 your columns that I take no share in the responsi- 
 bihty of hghting the pictures either of Reynolds 
 or Turner with gas ; that, on the contrary, my 
 experience would lead me to apprehend serious 
 injury to those pictures from such a measure ; and 
 that it is with profound regret that I have heard 
 of its adoption. 
 
 I specify the pictures of Reynolds and Turner, 
 because the combinations of colouring material em- 
 ployed by both these painters are various, and to 
 some extent unknown ; and also because the body 
 of their colours shows peculiar liability to crack, 
 and to detach itself from the canvass. I am glad 
 to be able to bear testimony to the fitness of the 
 gallery at Kensington, as far as could be expected 
 under the circumstances, for the exhibition of the 
 Turner pictures by daylight, as well as to the excel- 
 lence of Mr. Wornum's chronological arrangement of 
 them in the three principal rooms, 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
 Denmark Hill, Oct. 20. 
 
 P.S. I wish the writer of the admirable and ex- 
 haustive letter which appeared in your columns of
 
 1859] TURNER GALLERY AT KENSINGTON. 1 45 
 
 yesterday on the subject of Mr. Scott's design for 
 the Foreign Office would allow me to know his 
 name.* 
 
 * This refers to a letter signed " E. A. F." which appeared in The 
 Tif?ies of October 19, 1859, advising the adoption of Mr. Gilbert Scott's 
 Gothic design for the Foreign Office in preference to any Classic design. 
 The writer entered at some length into the principles of Gothic and 
 Classic architecture, which he briefly summed up in the last sentence 
 of his letter: — "Gothic, then, is national; it is constructively real; it 
 is equally adapted to all sorts of buildings ; it is convenient ; it is cheap. 
 In none of these does Italian surpass it ; in most of them it is very 
 inferior to it." See the letters on the Oxford Museum as to the 
 adaptability of Gothic, — included in Section vi. of these Letters on 
 Art. With regard to the cheapness of Gothic, the correspondent 
 of The Times had pointed out that while it may be cheap and yet 
 thoroughly good so far as it goes, Italian tniist always be costly. 
 
 VOL. L 10
 
 146 LETTERS ON ART. [1876 
 
 From 'The Daily Telegraph,' July 5, 1876. 
 
 TURNER'S DRAWINGS. 
 To the Editor of 'The Daily Telegraph,* 
 
 Sir, — I am very heartily glad to see the subject 
 of Turner's drawings brought more definitely before 
 the public in your remarks on the recent debate * 
 in Parliament. It is indeed highly desirable that 
 these drawings should be made more accessible, and 
 I will answer your reference to me by putting you 
 in possession of all the facts which it is needful that 
 the public should know or take into consideration 
 respecting them, in either judging what has been 
 hitherto done by those entrusted with their care, or 
 taking measures for obtaining greater freedom in 
 their use. Their ttse, I say, as distinguished from 
 the mere pleasure of seeing them. This pleasure, 
 to the general public, is very small indeed. You 
 appear not to be aware that three hundred of the 
 finest examples, including all the originals of the 
 Liber Studiorum, were framed by myself, especially 
 for the public, in the year 1858, and have been 
 
 * Hardly a debate. Lord Francis Hervey had recently (June 30, 
 1876) put a question in the House of Commons to Lord Henry Lennox 
 (First Commissioner of Works) as to whether it was the fact that many 
 of Turner's drawings were at that time stowed in the cellars of the 
 National Gallery, and had never been exhibited. The Daily Telegraph 
 in a short article on the matter (July i, 1876,) appealed to Mr. Ruskin 
 for his opinion on the exhibition of these drawings.
 
 1876] turner's drawings. 147 
 
 exhibited every day, and all day long, ever since in 
 London, But the public never stops a moment in 
 the room at Kensington where they hang ; and the 
 damp, filth, and gas (under the former management 
 of that institution*) soiled their frames and warped 
 the drawings, " by friend remembered not." 
 
 You have been also misinformed in supposing 
 that " for some years these aquarelles were un- 
 reservedly shown, and in all the fulness of day- 
 light." Only the ' Seine ' series (rivers of France), the 
 rivers of England, the harbours of England, and 
 the Rogers' vignettes (about a hundred drawings 
 in all), were exhibited in the dark under-room of 
 Marlborough House, and a few larger and smaller 
 examples scattered up and down in the room of 
 the National Gallery, including Fort Bard, Edinburgh, 
 and Ivy Bridget These drawings are all finished, 
 most of them have been engraved ; they were shown 
 as the choicest of the collection, and there is no 
 question but that they should always be perfectly 
 
 * Now I trust, under Mr. Poynter and Mr. Sparkes, 
 undergoing thorough reform. f 
 
 t Mr. Poynter, R.A., was then, as now, Director, and Mr. Sparkes 
 Head Master, of the Art School at the South Kensington Museum, 
 
 + For notes of these drawings see the Catalogue of the Turner 
 Sketches and Drawings already mentioned — (a) The Battle of Fort 
 Bard, Val d'Aosta, p. 32 ; (d) the Edinburgh, p. 30 ; and (t) the Ivy 
 Bridge, Devon, p. 32.
 
 148 LETTERS ON ART. [1876 
 
 accessible to the public. There are no other finished 
 drawings in the vast mass of the remaining material 
 for exhibition and means of education. But these 
 are all the drawings which Turner made during 
 his lifetime, in colour, chalk, pencil, and ink, for his 
 own study or delight ; that is to say, pencil sketches 
 to be counted by the thousand (how many thousands 
 I cannot safely so much as guess), and assuredly 
 upwards of two thousand coloured studies, many of 
 exquisite beauty ; and all instructive as no other 
 water-colour work ever was before, or has been 
 since ; besides the ink and chalk studies for all his 
 great Academy pictures.'^ 
 
 There are in this accumulation of drawings means 
 of education in the noblest principles of elementary 
 art and in the most accomplished science of colour 
 for every drawing-school in England, were they 
 properly distributed. Besides these, there are the 
 three hundred chosen drawings already named, now 
 at Kensington, and about two hundred more of equal 
 value, now in the lower rooms of the National 
 Gallery, which the Trustees permitted me to choose 
 out of the mass, and frame for general service. 
 
 * I have omitted to add to my note (p. 122) on Mr. Ruskin's 
 arrangement of the Turner drawings a reference to his own account 
 of the labour which that arrangement involved, and of the condition 
 in which he found the vast mass of the sketches. See 'Modern 
 Painters,' vol. v., Preface, p. vi.
 
 1876] turner's drawings. 149 
 
 They are framed as I frame exercise-drawings at 
 Oxford, for my ow-n schools. They are, when in 
 use, perfectly secure from dust and all other sources 
 of injury ; slide, when done with, into portable 
 cabinets ; are never exposed to light, but when 
 they are being really looked at ; and can be 
 examined at his ease, measured, turned in whatever 
 light he likes, by every student or amateur who 
 takes the smallest interest in them. But it is 
 necessary, for this mode of exhibition, that there 
 should be trustworthy persons in charge of the 
 drawings, as of the MSS. in the British Museum, 
 and that there should be attendants in observation, 
 as in the Print Room of the Museum, that glasses 
 may not be broken, or drawings taken out of the 
 frames. 
 
 Thus taken care of, and thus shown, the drawings 
 may be a quite priceless possession to the people of 
 England for the next five centuries ; whereas those 
 exhibited in the Manchester Exhibition were vir- 
 tually destroyed in that single summer.* There is 
 not one of them but is the mere wreck of what it 
 was. I do not choose to name destroyed drawings 
 in the possession of others ; but I will name the 
 
 * The Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857, being the year in which the 
 lectures contained in the ' Pohtical Economy of Art ' were delivered. 
 See 'A Joy for Ever ' — Ruskin's Works, vol. xi. p. 80.)
 
 V 
 
 150 LETTERS ON ART. [1876 
 
 vignette of the Plains of Troy in my own, which 
 had half the sky baked out of it in that fatal year, 
 and the three drawings of Richmond (Yorkshire), 
 Egglestone Abbey, and Langharne Castle,* which 
 have had by former exposure to light their rose- 
 colours entirely destroyed, and half of their blues, 
 leaving nothing safe but the brown. 
 
 I do not think it necessary to repeat my former 
 statements respecting the injurious power of light 
 on certain pigments rapidly, and on all eventually. 
 The respective keepers of the Print Room and of the 
 Manuscripts in the British Museum are the proper 
 persons to be consulted on that matter, their expe- 
 rience being far larger than mine, and over longer 
 epochs. I willy however, myself undertake to show 
 from my own collection a water-colour of the 
 eleventh century absolutely as fresh as when it was 
 laid — having been guarded from light ; and water- 
 
 * ' The Plains of Troy ' ; — see for a note of this drawing Mr, 
 Ruskin's Notes on his own 'Turners,' 1878, p. 45, where he describes 
 it as "one of the most elaborate of the Byron vignettes, and full of 
 beauty," adding that "the meaning of the sunset contending with the 
 storm is the contest of the powers of Apollo and Athene;" and for 
 the engraving of it, see Murray's edition of Byron's Life and Works, 
 (1832, seventeen volumes,) where it forms the vignette title-page of 
 vol. vii. For the Richmond and the Egglestone Abbey, also in the 
 possession of Mr. Ruskin, see the above-mentioned Notes, p. 29 (Nos. 
 26 and 27). The Langharne Castle was formerly in the possession 
 of Mr. W. M. Bigg, at the sale of whose collection in 1868 it was 
 sold for ;£"45i.
 
 1876] turner's drawings. 151 
 
 colour burnt by sunlight into a mere dirty stain on 
 the paper, in a year, with the matched piece from 
 which it was cut beside it. 
 
 The public may, therefore, at their pleasure treat 
 their Turner drawings as a large exhibition of fire- 
 works, see them explode, clap their hands, and have 
 done with them ; or they may treat them as an 
 exhaustless library of noble learning. To this end, 
 they need, first, space and proper light — north light, 
 as clear of smoke as possible, and large windows ; 
 and then proper attendance — that i« to say, well- 
 paid librarians and servants. 
 
 The space will of course be difficult to obtain, 
 for while the British public of the upper classes are 
 always ready to pay any money whatever for space 
 to please their pride in their own dining-rooms and 
 ball-rooms, they would not, most of them, give five 
 shillings a year to get a good room in the National 
 Gallery to show the national drawings in. As to 
 the room in which it is at present proposed to place 
 them in the new building, they might just as well, 
 for any good that will ever be got out of them there, 
 be exhibited in a railway tunnel. 
 
 And the attendants will also be difficult to obtain 
 For — and this is the final fact to which I beg your 
 notice — these drawings now in question were, as I 
 above stated, framed by me in 1858. They have
 
 152 LETTERS ON ART, [1876 
 
 been perfectly ' accessible ' ever since, and are so 
 now, as easily as any works* in the shops of Regent 
 Street are accessible over the counter, if you have 
 got a shopman to hand them to you. And the 
 British public have been whining and growling about 
 their exclusion from the sight of these drawings for 
 the last eighteen years, simply because, while they 
 are willing to pay for any quantity of sentinels to 
 stand in boxes about town and country, for any 
 quantity of flunkeys to stand on boards for addi- 
 tional weight to carriage horses, and for any quantity 
 of footmen to pour out their wine and chop up their 
 meat for them, they would not for all these eighteen 
 years pay so much as a single attendant to hand 
 them the Turner drawings across the National 
 Gallery table ; but only what was needful to obtain 
 for two days in the week the withdrawal from his 
 other duties in the Gallery of the old servant of 
 Mr. Samuel Rogers. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
 Brantwood, July 3. 
 
 A misprint for ' wares ' ; see next letter, p. 153.
 
 1876] turner's drawings. 153 
 
 From ' The Daily Telegraph,' July 19, 1876. 
 
 TURNER'S DRAWINGS. 
 To the Editor of 'The Daily Telegraph J 
 
 Sir, — In justice to our living water-colour artists, 
 will you favour me by printing the accompanying 
 letter,* which I think will be satisfactory to many 
 of your readers, on points respecting which my own 
 may have given some of them a false impression .'' 
 In my former letter, permit me to correct the mis- 
 print of 'works' in Regent Street for "wares." 
 
 I have every reason to suppose Mr. Collingwood 
 Smith's knowledge of the subject entirely trust- 
 worthy ; but when all is conceded, must still repeat 
 that no water-colour work of value should ever be 
 constantly exposed to light, or even to the air of 
 a crowded metropolis, least of all to gaslight or its 
 
 fumes. 
 
 I am. Sir, yours, etc., 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, Jttly 16. 
 
 * Addressed to Mr. Ruskin by Mr. Collingwood Smith, and request- 
 ing Mr. Ruskin to state in a second letter that the remarks as to the 
 effect of light on the water-colours of Turner did not extend to water- 
 colour drawings in general ; but that the evanescence of the colours in 
 Turner's drawings was due partly to the peculiar vehicles with v,-hicli 
 he painted, and partly to the grey paper (saturated with indigo) on 
 which he frequently worked. Mr. Ruskin complied with this request 
 by thus forwarding for publication Mr. Collingwood Smith's letter.
 
 154 LETTERS ON ART. . [1876 
 
 From 'The Times,' April 25, 1876. 
 
 COPIES OF TURNER'S DRAWINGS. 
 
 To the Editor of ' The Times. ' 
 
 Sir, — You will oblige me by correcting the 
 misstatement in your columns of the 22nd,* that 
 " only copies of the copies " of Turner exhibited at 
 
 * The references to The Times allude to an article on the ' Copies 
 of Turner Drawings,' by Mr. William Ward, of 2, Church Terrace, 
 Richmond, Surrey, which were then, as now, exhibited for sale in the 
 rooms of the Fine Art Society. 
 
 Of these copies of Turner, Mr. Ruskin says, "They are executed 
 with extreme care under my own eye by the draughtsman trained by 
 me for the purpose, Mr. Ward. Everything that can be learned from 
 the smaller works of Turner may be as securely learned from these 
 drawings. I have been more than once in doubt, seeing original and 
 copy together, which was which ; and I think them about the best 
 works that can now be obtained for a moderate price, representing 
 the authoritative forms of art in landscape." — Extract from letter of 
 Mr. Ruskin, written in 1867. List of Turner Drawings, etc., shown in 
 connection with Mr. Norton's lectures. Boston, 1874, p. 9. (See also 
 'Ariadne Florentina,' p. 221, note.) 
 
 The following comment of Mr. Ruskin on one of Mr. Ward's most 
 recent copies is also interesting as evidence that the opinions expressed 
 in this letter are still retained by its writer: — "London, 20th March, 
 1880. — The copy of Turner's drawing of Fluelen, which has beeajust 
 completed by Mr. Ward, and shown to me to-day, is beyond my best 
 hopes in every desirable quality of execution ;■ and is certainly as 
 g^ood as it is possible for care and skill to make it. I am so entirely 
 satisfied with it that, for my own personal pleasure — irrespective of 
 pride, I should feel scarcely any loss in taking it home with me instead 
 of the original ; and for all uses of artistic example or instruction, it 
 is absolutely as good as the original. — John Ruskin." — The copy in 
 question is from a drawing in the possession of Mr. Ruskin (see the 
 Turner Notes, 1878, No. 70,) and was executed for its present pro- 
 prietor, Mr. T. S. Kennedy,, of Meanwoods, Leeds^ 
 
 1
 
 1876] COPIES OF turner's DRAWINGS. I 55 
 
 148, New Bond Street, are for sale. The drawings 
 offered for sale by the company will, of course, be 
 always made by Mr. Ward from the originals, just 
 as much as those now exhibited as specimens. 
 
 You observe in the course of your article that 
 "surely such attempts could not gratify any one who 
 had a true insight for Mr. Turner's works ?" But 
 the reason that the drawings now at 148, New Bond 
 Street, are not for sale, is that they do gratify me, 
 and are among my extremely valued possessions ; 
 and if among the art critics on your staff there be, 
 indeed, any one whose "insight for Mr. Turner's 
 work" you suppose to be greater than mine, I shall 
 have much pleasure in receiving any instructions 
 with which he may favour me, at the National 
 Gallery, on the points either in which Mr. Ward's 
 work may be improved, or on those in which Turner 
 is so superior to Titian and Correggio,. that while 
 the public maintain, in Italy, a nation of copyists 
 of these second-rate masters, they are not justified 
 in hoping any success whatever in representing the 
 work of the Londoner, whom, while he was alive, 
 I was always called mad for praising. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
 Peterborough, Af7-i7 23.
 
 156 LETTERS ON ART. [1871 
 
 From 'The Times,' January 24, 1871. 
 
 'TURNERS,' FALSE AND TRUE. 
 To the Editor of ' The Tiniest 
 
 Sir, — I have refused until now to express any 
 opinion respecting the picture No. 40* in the Exhi- 
 bition of the Old Masters, feeling extreme reluctance 
 to say anything which its kind owner, to whom the 
 Exhibition owes so much, might deem discourteous. 
 
 But I did not suppose it was possible any doubt 
 could long exist among artists as to the character of 
 the work in question ; and, as I find its authenticity 
 still in some quarters maintained, I think no other 
 course is open to me than to state that the picture 
 is not by Turner, nor even by an imitator of Turner 
 acquainted with the essential qualities of the master. 
 
 I am able to assert this on internal evidence only. 
 I never saw the picture before, nor do I know any- 
 thing of the channels through which' it came into 
 the possession of its present proprietor. 
 
 No. 235 is, on the contrary, one of the most con- 
 summate and majestic works that ever came from 
 the artist's hand, and it is one of the very iow now 
 remaining which have not been injured by subsequent 
 treatment. — I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
 Denmark Hill, "Jan. 23. 
 
 * ' Italy,' a reputed Turner, lent by the late Mr. Wynn Ellis. No. 235 
 was ' A Landscape,' with Cattle, in the possession of Lord Leconfield.
 
 i857j THE CHARACTER OF TURNER. I 57 
 
 From ' The Life of Turner,' by Walter Thornbury. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF TURNER.* 
 
 [The following admonition, sent by Mr. Ruskin in 1857 
 to Mr. Thornbury, and coupled with the advice that for 
 the biographer of Turner there was no time to be lost, 
 " for those who knew him when young are dying daily," 
 forms a fit conclusion to this division of the letters.] 
 
 Fix at the beginning the following main charac- 
 teristics of Turner in your mind, as the keys to 
 the secret of all he said and did : — 
 
 UprigJitness. 
 
 Genei'osity. 
 
 Tenderness of heart (extreme). 
 
 Sensuality. 
 
 Obstinacy (extreme). 
 
 Irritability. 
 
 Infidelity. 
 
 And be sure that he knew his own power, and 
 
 felt himself utterly alone in the world from its not 
 
 being understood. Don't try to mask the dark 
 
 side. . . . 
 
 Yours most truly, 
 
 J. Ruskin. 
 
 [See the preface to the first edition of the ' Life of 
 Turner'; that to the second contains the following esti- 
 
 * See also 'Modem Painters,' vol. v. pp. 345 — 347, and 'Lectures 
 on Architecture and Painting,' pp. 181 — 188, where the character of 
 Turner is further explained, and various anecdotes given in special 
 illustration of his truth, generosity, and kindness of heart.
 
 158 LETTERS ON ART. [1861 
 
 mate of Mr. Thornbury's book:* — "Lucerne, Dec. 2, 1861. — 
 I have just received and am reading your book with deep 
 interest. I am much gratified by the view you have taken 
 and give of Turner. It is quite what I hoped. What beau- 
 tiful things you have discovered about him ! Thank you for 
 your courteous and far too flattering references to me."] 
 
 * The book was also referred to in ' Modern Painters, ' vol. v. 
 p. 344, where Mr. Ruskin speaks of this 'Life of Turner,' then still 
 unpublished, as being written "by a biographer, who will, I believe, 
 spare no pains in collecting the few scattered records which exist of 
 a career so uneventful and secluded."
 
 LETTERS ON ART. 
 
 V. 
 PICTURES AND ARTISTS. 
 
 JOHN LEECH'S OUTLINES. 1872. 
 
 ERNEST GEORGE'S ETCHINGS. 1873. 
 
 THE FREDERICK WALKER EXHIBITION. 1876.
 
 V. 
 
 PICTURES AND ARTISTS. 
 
 From the ' Catalogue of the Exhibition of Outlines by the late John Leech , 
 at the Gallery, 9, Conduit Street, Regent Street.' 1872.* 
 
 JOHN LEECH'S OUTLINES. 
 
 I am honoured by the request of the sister of 
 John Leech that I should give some account of the 
 drawings of her brother, which remain in her pos- 
 session ; and I am able to fulfil her request without 
 departing from the rule which has always bound me, 
 not to allow any private interest to weigh with me 
 in speaking of matters which concern the public. It 
 is merely and simply a matter of public concern 
 that the value of these drawings should be known 
 and measures taken for their acquisition, or, at least, 
 for obtaining a characteristic selection from them, as 
 a National property. It cannot be necessary for 
 me, or for any one now to praise the work of John 
 Leech. Admittedly it contains the finest definition 
 and natural history of the classes of our society, 
 the kindest and subtlest analysis of its foibles, the 
 
 * Nearly eight years after Leech's death on October 29, 1864. 
 VOL. I. I I
 
 1 62 LETTERS ON ART. [1872 
 
 tenderest flattery of its pretty and well-bred ways, 
 with which the modesty of subservient genius ever 
 amused or immortalized careless masters. But it is 
 not generally known how much more valuable, as 
 art, the first sketches for the woodcuts were than 
 the finished drawings, even before those drawings 
 sustained any loss in engraving. 
 
 John Leech was an absolute master of the 
 elements of character — but not by any means of 
 those of chiaroscuro, — and the admirableness of his 
 work diminished as it became elaborate. The first 
 few lines in which he sets down his purpose are 
 invariably of all drawing that I know the most 
 wonderful in their accurate felicity and prosperous 
 haste. It is true that the best possible drawing, 
 whether slight or elaborate, is never hurried. Holbein 
 or Titian, if they lay only a couple of lines, yet lay 
 them quietly, and leave them entirely right. But it 
 needs a certain sternness of temper to do this. 
 
 Most, in the prettiest sense of the word, gentle 
 artists indulge themselves in the ease, and even trust 
 to the felicity of rapid — and even in a measure 
 inconsiderate — work in sketching, so that the beauty 
 of a sketch is understood to be consistent with what 
 is partly unintentional. 
 
 There is, however, one condition of extreme and 
 exquisite skill in which haste may become unerring.
 
 1872] JOHN leech's outlines. 1 63 
 
 It cannot be obtained in completely finished work ; 
 but the hands of Gainsborough, Reynolds, or Tintoret 
 often nearly approach completion at full speed, and 
 the pencil sketches of Turner are expressive almost 
 in the direct ratio of their rapidity. 
 
 But of all rapid and condensed realization ever 
 accomplished by the pencil, John Leech's is the most 
 dainty, and the least fallible, in the subjects of which 
 he was cognizant. Not merely right in the traits 
 which he seizes, but refined in the sacrifice of what 
 he refuses. 
 
 The drawing becomes slight through fastidious- 
 ness not indolence, and the finest discretion has left 
 its touches rare. 
 
 In flexibility and lightness of pencilling, nothing 
 but the best outlines of Italian masters with the 
 silver point can be compared to them. That Leech 
 sketched English squires instead of saints, and their 
 daughters instead of martyrs, does not in the least 
 affect the question respecting skill of pencilling ; 
 and I repeat deliberately that nothing but the best 
 work of sixteenth century Italy with the silver point 
 exists in art, which in rapid refinement these playful 
 English drawings do not excel. There are too 
 many of them (fortunately) to be rightly exemplary 
 — I want to see the collection divided, dated care- 
 fully, and selected portions placed in good light, in
 
 164 LETTERS ON ART. [1872 
 
 a quite permanent arrangement in each of our great 
 towns in connection with their drawing schools. 
 
 I will not indeed have any in Oxford while I am 
 there, because I am afraid that my pupils should 
 think too lightly of their drawing as compared with 
 their other studies, and I doubt their studying any- 
 thing else but John Leech if they had him to study. 
 But in our servile schools of mechanical drawing, to 
 see what drawing was indeed, which could represent 
 something better than machines and could not be 
 mimicked by any machinery, would put more life 
 into them than any other teaching I can conceive. 
 
 It is, therefore, with the greatest pleasure that I 
 accept the honour of having my name placed on 
 the committee for obtaining funds for the purchase 
 of these drawings ; and I trust that the respect of 
 the English public for the gentle character of the 
 master, and their gratitude for the amusement with 
 which he has brightened so many of their days, 
 will be expressed in the only way in which expres- 
 sion is yet possible by due care and wise use of 
 the precious possessions he has left to them. 
 
 (Signed) J. RUSKIN.
 
 i873] ERNEST GEORGE'S ETCHINGS. 1 65 
 
 From 'The Architect,' December 27, 1873. 
 
 ERNEST GEORGE'S ETCHINGS. 
 To the Editor of ' The Architect.^ 
 
 My dear Sir, — I am entirely glad }-ou had per- 
 mission to publish some of Mr. Ernest George's 
 etchings ; they are the most precious pieces of 
 work I have seen for many a day, though they are 
 still, like nearly everything the English do best 
 in art, faultful in matters which might have been 
 easily conquered, and not a little wasteful, some- 
 times of means and time ; I should be glad, there- 
 fore, of space enough in your columns to state, with 
 reference to these sketches, some of the principles 
 of etching which I had not time to define in the 
 lectures on engraving I gave this year, at Oxford,! 
 
 * The number of the Architect in which this letter was printed 
 contained two sketches from Mr. George's 'Etchings on the Mosel,' — 
 those, viz., of the Elector's Palace, Coblentz, and of the interior of Metz 
 Cathedral. The intention of the Architect to reproduce these etchings 
 had apparently been previously communicated to Mr. Ruskin, who 
 wrote the present letter for the issue in which the etchings were to 
 be given. Mr. George has since published other works of the same 
 kind — e.g., 'Etchings in Belgium,' 'Etchings on the Loire' (see Mr. 
 Ruskin's advice to him at the end of this letter, p. 169). 
 
 f The reference must, I think, be to ' Ariadne Florentina : Six 
 Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving given before the University 
 of Oxford, Michaelmas Term, 1872,' and afterwards published, 1873-6, 
 The lectures given in the year 1873 were upon Tuscan Art, now pub- 
 lished in ' Val d'Arno.'
 
 1 66 LETTERS ON ART. [1873 
 
 and which are too often forgotten even by our best 
 draughtsmen. 
 
 I call Mr. George's work precious, chiefly because 
 it indicates an intense perception of points of 
 character in architecture, and a sincere enjoyment 
 of them for their own sake. His drawings are not 
 accumulative of material for future use ; still less 
 are they vain exhibitions of his own skill. He 
 draws the scene in all its true relations, because it 
 delights him, and he perceives what is permanently 
 and altogether characteristic in it. As opposed to 
 such frank and joyful work, most modern archi- 
 tectural drawings are mere diagram or exercise. 
 
 I call them precious, in the second place, because 
 they show very great powers of true composition. 
 All their subjects are made delightful more by skill of 
 arrangement than by any dexterities of execution ; 
 and this faculty is very rare amongst landscape 
 painters and architects, because nearly every man 
 who has any glimmering of it naturally takes to 
 figure painting — not that the ambition to paint 
 figures is any sign of the faculty, but that, when 
 people have the faculty, they nearly always have 
 also the ambition. And, indeed, this is quite right, 
 if they would not forsake their architecture after- 
 wards, but apply their power of figure design, when 
 gained, to the decoration of their buildings.
 
 1873] ERNEST GEORGE'S ETCHINGS. 1 6/ 
 
 To return to Mr. George's work. It is precious, 
 lastly, in its fine sense of serene light and shade, as 
 opposed to the coruscations and horrors of modern 
 attempts in that direction. But it is a pity — and 
 this is the first grand principle of etching which 
 I feel it necessary to affirm — when the instinct 
 of chiaroscuro leads the artist to spend time 
 in producing texture on his plate which cannot 
 be ultimately perfect, however laboured. All the 
 common raptures concerning blots, burr, delicate 
 biting, and the other tricks of the etching trade, 
 merely indicate imperfect feeling for shadow. 
 
 The proper instrument of chiaroscuro is the brush ; 
 a wash of sepia, rightly managed, will do more in 
 ten minutes than Rembrandt himself could do in 
 ten days of the most ingenious scratching, or blurt 
 out by the most happy mixtures of art and acci- 
 dent.* As soon as Mr. George has learned what 
 true light and shade is, (and a few careful studies 
 with brush or chalk would enable him to do so,) he 
 will not labour his etched subjects in vain. The 
 
 * The value of Rembrandt's etchings is always in the 
 inverse ratio of the labour bestowed on them after his first 
 thoughts have been decisively expressed ; and even the 
 best of his chiaroscuros (the spotted shell, for instance), are 
 mere child's play compared to the disciplined light and 
 shade of Italian masters.
 
 1 68 LETTERS ON ART. [1873 
 
 virtue of an etching, in this respect, is to express 
 perfectly harmonious sense of Hght and shade, but 
 not to realize it. All fine etchings are done with 
 few lines. 
 
 Secondly, — and this is a still more important 
 general principle, (I must let myself fall into dicta- 
 torial terms for brevity's sake) — Let your few lines 
 be sternly clear, however delicate, or however dark. 
 All burr and botch is child's play, and a true 
 draughtsman must never be at the mercy of his 
 copper and ink. Drive your line well and fairly 
 home ; don't scrawl or zigzag ; know where your 
 hand is going, and what it is doing, to a hairs- 
 breadth ; then bite clear and clean, and let the 
 last impression be as good as the first. When it 
 begins to fail, break your plate. 
 
 Third general principle. 
 
 Don't depend much on various biting. For a 
 true master, and a great purpose, even one biting is 
 enough. By no flux or dilution of acid can you ever 
 etch a cUrl of hair or a cloud ; and if you think you 
 can etch the gradations of coarser things, it is only 
 because you have never seen them. Try, at your 
 leisure, to etch a teacup or a tallow candle, of their 
 real size ; see what you can make of the gradations 
 of those familiar articles; if you succeed to your mind, 
 you may try something more difficult afterwards.
 
 i873] ERNEST GEORGE'S ETCHINGS. 1 69 
 
 Lastly. For all definite shades of architectural 
 detail, use pencil or charcoal, or the brush, never 
 the pen point. You can draw a leaf surface rightly 
 in a minute or two with these, — with the pen point, 
 never, to all eternity. And on your knowing what 
 the surface of a form is depends your entire power 
 of recognizing good work. The difference between 
 thirteenth-century work, wholly beautiful, and a 
 cheap imitation of it, wholly damnable, lies in gra- 
 dation of surface as subtle as those of a rose-leaf, 
 and which are, to modern sculpture, what singing 
 is to a steam-whistle. 
 
 For the rest, the limitation of etched work to 
 few lines enables the sketcher to multiply his sub- 
 jects, and make his time infinitely more useful to 
 himself and others. I would most humbly solicit, 
 in conclusion, such advantageous use of his gifts 
 from Mr. George. He might etch a little summer 
 tour for us every year, and give permanent and 
 exquisite record of a score of scenes, rich in his- 
 torical interest, with no more pains than he has 
 spent on one or two of these plates in drawing 
 the dark sides of a wall. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 John Ruskin.
 
 I/O LETTERS ON ART. [1876 
 
 From ' The Times,' January 20, 1876. 
 
 THE FREDERICK WALKER EXHIBITION. 
 
 Dear Mr. Marks,* — You ask me to say what I 
 feel of Frederick Walker's work, now seen in some 
 collective mass, as far as anything can be seen in 
 black-veiled London. You have long known my 
 admiration of his genius, my delight in many pas- 
 sages of his art. These, while he lived, were all I 
 cared to express. If you will have me speak of him 
 now, I will speak the whole truth of what I feel — 
 namely, that every soul in London interested in art 
 ought to go to see that Exhibition, and, amid all the 
 beauty and the sadness of it, very diligently to try 
 and examine themselves as to the share they have 
 had, in their own busy modern life, in arresting the 
 power of this man at the point where it stayed. 
 Very chief share they have had, assuredly. But he 
 himself, in the liberal and radical temper of modern 
 youth, has had his own part in casting down his 
 strength, following wantonly or obstinately his own 
 fancies wherever they led him. For instance, it 
 being Nature's opinion that sky should usually be 
 
 * This letter was written to Mr. H. Stacy Marks, A.R.A., in answer 
 to a request that Mr. Ruskin would in some way record his impression 
 of the Frederick Walker Exhibition, then open to the public. Frederick 
 Walker died in June 1875, at the early age of thirty-five, only four years 
 after having been elected an Atsociate of the Royal Academy.
 
 1876] THE FREDERICK WALKER EXHIBITION. 171 
 
 blue, and it being Mr. Walker's opinion that it 
 should be the colour of buff plaster, he resolutely 
 makes it so, for his own isolated satisfaction, partly 
 in affectation also, buff skies being considered by 
 the public more sentimental than blue ones. Again, 
 the laws of all good painting having been long ago 
 determined by absolute masters, whose work cannot 
 be bettered nor departed from — Titian having deter- 
 mined for ever what oil-painting is, Angelico what 
 tempera-painting is, Perugino what fresco-painting 
 is, two hundred years of noble miniature-painting 
 what minutest work on ivory is, and, in modern 
 times, a score of entirely skilful and disciplined 
 draughtsmen what pure water-colour and pure 
 body-colour painting on paper are, (Turner's York- 
 shire drawing of Hornby Castle, now at Kensington, 
 and John Lewis's 'Encampment under Sinai,'* being 
 nameable at once as unsurpassable standards,) here 
 is Mr. Walker refusing to learn anything from 
 any of those schools or masters, but inventing a 
 semi-miniature, quarter fresco, quarter wash manner 
 of his own — exquisitely clever, and reaching, under 
 such clever management, delightfullest results here 
 and there, but which betrays his genius into per- 
 
 * The ' Hornby Castle ' was executed, together with the rest of the 
 "great Yorkshire series," for Whitaker's * History of Richmondshire ' 
 (Longman, 1823). — The picture of John Lewis here alluded to is de- 
 scribed in Mr. Ruskin's 'Academy Notes,' 1856, No. II., p. 37.
 
 1/2 LETTERS ON ART. [1876 
 
 petual experiment instead of achievement, and his 
 Hfe into woful vacillation between the good, old, 
 quiet room of the Water-Colour Society, and your 
 labyrinthine magnificence at Burlington House. 
 
 Lastly, and in worst error, the libraries of England 
 being full of true and noble books — her annals of 
 true and noble history, and her traditions of beau- 
 tiful and noble — in these scientific times I must 
 say, I suppose, * mythology' — not religion — from all 
 these elements of mental education and subjects of 
 serviceable art, he turns recklessly away to enrich the 
 advertisements of the circulating library, to sketch 
 whatever pleases his fancy, barefooted, or in dainty 
 boots, of modern beggary and fashion, and enforce, 
 with laboriously symbolical pathos, his adherence to 
 Justice Shallow's sublime theology that 'all shall die.' 
 That theology has indeed been preached by 
 stronger men, again and again, from Horace's days 
 to our own, but never to so little purpose. ' Let 
 us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,' said wisely 
 in his way, the Latin farmer : ate his beans and 
 bacon in comfort, had his suppers of the gods on 
 the fair earth, with his servants jesting round the 
 table, and left eternal monuments of earthly wisdom 
 and of cricket-song. ' Let us labour and be just, for 
 to-morrow we die, and after death the Judgment,' 
 said Holbein and Diirer, and left eternal monuments
 
 1876] THE FREDERICK WALKER EXHIBITION. 1 73 
 
 of upright human toil and honourable gloom of 
 godly fear. ' Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, 
 for to-morrow we die, and shall be with God,' said 
 Angelico and Giotto, and left eternal monuments 
 of divinely- blazoned heraldry of Heaven. ' Let us 
 smoke pipes, make money, read bad novels, walk in 
 bad air, and say sentimentally how sick we are in the 
 afternoon, for to-morrow we die, and shall be made 
 ourselves clay pipes,' says the modern world, and 
 drags this poor bright painter down into the abyss 
 with it, vainly clutching at a handful or two of scent 
 and flowers in the May gardens. 
 
 Under which sorrowful terms, being told also by 
 your grand Academicians that he should paint the 
 nude, and, accordingly, wasting a year or two of his 
 life in trying to paint schoolboys' backs and. legs 
 without their shirts or breeches, and with such other 
 magazine material as he can pick up of sick gipsies, 
 faded gentlewomen, pretty girls disguised as paupers, 
 and the red-roofed or grey remnants of old English 
 villages and manor-house, last wrecks of the country's 
 peace and honour, remaining yet visible among the 
 black ravages of its ruin, he supplies the demands of 
 his temporary public, scarcely patient, even now that 
 he has gone, to pause beside his delicate tulips or 
 under his sharp-leaved willows, and repent for the 
 passing tints and fallen petals of the life that might
 
 174 LETTERS ON ART. [1876 
 
 have been so precious, and, perhaps, in better days, 
 prolonged. 
 
 That is the main moral of the Exhibition, Of 
 the beauty of the drawings, accepting them for 
 what they aim at being, there is little need that 1 
 should add anything to what has been already said 
 rightly by the chief organs of the London Press. 
 Nothing can go beyond them in subtlety of exhibited 
 touch (to be distinguished, however, observe always 
 from the serene completion of master's work, disdain- 
 ing the applause to be gained by its manifestation) ; 
 their harmonies of amber-colour and purple are full 
 of exquisite beauty in their chosen key ; their com- 
 position always graceful, often admirable, and the 
 sympathy they express with all conditions of human 
 life most kind and true ; not without power of 
 rendering character which would have been more 
 recognized in an inferior artist, because it would 
 have been less restrained by the love of beauty. 
 
 I might, perhaps, in my days of youth and good 
 fortune, have written what the public would have 
 called ' eloquent passages' on the subjects of the 
 Almshouse and the Old Gate ;* being now myself 
 
 * The following are the pictures, as catalogued, mentioned here : — 
 
 1. ' The Almshouse' — No. 52 — called ' The House of Refuge.' Oil on 
 canvas. A garden and terrace in quadrangle of almshouses ; on left an old 
 woman and girl ; on right a mower cutting grass. Exhibited R. A. 1872. 
 
 2. * The Old Gate ' — No. 48 — oil on canvas. Lady in black and
 
 1876] THE FREDERICK WALKER EXHIBITION. 1 75 
 
 old and decrepit, (besides being much bothered with 
 beggars, and in perpetual feud with parish officers,) 
 and having seen every building I cared for in the 
 world ruined, I pass these two pictures somewhat 
 hastily by, and try to enjoy myself a little in the 
 cottage gardens. Only one of them, however, — 
 No. 71 — has right sunshine in it, and that is a 
 sort of walled paddock where I begin directly to 
 feel uncomfortable about the lamb, lest, perchance, 
 some front shop in the cottages belong to a butcher. 
 If only it and I could get away to a bit of thymy 
 hill-side, we should be so much happier, leaving the 
 luminous — perhaps too ideally luminous — child to 
 adorn the pathetic paddock. I am too shy to speak 
 to either of those two beautiful ladies among the 
 lilies (37, dj), and take refuge among the shy chil- 
 dren before the 'Chaplain's Daughter' (20) — delight- 
 servant with basket coming through the gate of old mansion ; four 
 children at play at foot of steps ; two villagers and dog in foreground. 
 Exhibited R.A. 1869. 
 
 3. 'The Cottage Gardens' — No. 71, 'The Spring of Life.' Water- 
 colour. Lady in a garden with two children and a lamb ; a cherry 
 tree in blossom. Exhibited at the Water-Colour Society, Winter 1866-7. 
 See also Nos. 14 and 21. 
 
 4. 'Ladies and Lilies ' — No. 37, 'A Lady in a Garden, Perthshire,' 
 Water-colour. A lady seated on a knoll on which is a sun-dial ; grey- 
 hound on left; background, old manor-house. No. 67, ' Lilies.' Water- 
 colour. Lady in a garden watering flowers, chiefly lilies. Exhibited at 
 the Water-Colour Society, Winter 1869-70 and 1868-9 respectively. 
 
 5. 'The Chaplain's Daughter, 'No. 20, subject from Miss Thackeray's
 
 1/6 LETTERS ON ART. [1876 
 
 fullest, it seems to me, of the minor designs, and a 
 piece of most true and wise satire. The sketches of 
 the ' Daughter of Heth' go far to tempt me to read 
 the novel; and, ashamed of this weakness, I retreat 
 resolutely to the side of the exemplary young girl 
 knitting in the ' Old Farm Garden' (33), and would 
 instantly pick up her ball of worsted for her, but 
 that I wouldn't for the world disappoint the cat. 
 No drawing in the room is more delicately com- 
 pleted than this unpretending subject, and the 
 flower-painting in it, for instantaneous grace of 
 creative touch, cannot be rivalled; it is worth all 
 the Dutch flower-pieces in the world. 
 
 Much instructed, and more humiliated, by passage 
 after passage of its rapidly-grouped colour, I get 
 finally away into the comfortable corner beside the 
 salmon-fishers and the mushrooms ; and the last- 
 
 ' Jack the Giant-killer. ' Exhibited at the Water-Colour Society, Summer 
 1868. 
 
 6. 'Daughter of Heth, 'by W^. Black. No. 87. ' Do ye no ken this is 
 the Sabbath ? ' Young lady at piano ; servant enters hurriedly. (Study 
 in black and white, executed in 1872.) — [See vol. i. p. 41. " ' Preserve 
 us a', lassie, do ye ken what ye're doing ? Do ye no ken that this is the 
 Sabbath, and that you're in a respectable house ?' The girl turned round 
 with more wonder than alarm in her face : ' Is it not right to play music 
 on Sunday?'"] — (No. 131. Three more studies for the same novel.) 
 
 7. ' The Old Farm Garden ' — No. 33 — Water-colour. A girl, with 
 cat on lawn, knitting ; garden path bordered by tulips ; farm buildings 
 in background. Painted in 187 1. 
 
 8. ' Salmon-fishers' — No. 47 — 'Fisherman and Boy ' — Water-colour.
 
 1876] THE FREDERICK WALKER EXHIBITION. 1 77 
 
 named drawing, despise me who may, keeps me 
 till I've no more time to stay, for it entirely beats 
 my dear old William Hunt in the simplicity of its 
 execution, and rivals him in the subtlest truth. 
 
 I say nothing of the ' Fishmonger's Stalls' (952), 
 though there are qualities of the same kind in these 
 also, for they somewhat provoke me by their waste 
 of time — the labour spent on one of them would 
 have painted twenty instructive studies of fish of 
 their real size. And it is well for artists in general 
 to observe that when they do condescend to paint 
 still life carefully — whether fruit, fungi or fish — it 
 must at least be of the real size. The portrait of 
 a man or woman is only justifiably made small that 
 it may be portable, and nobody wants to carry about 
 the miniature of a cod ; and if the reader will waste 
 five minutes of his season in London in the National 
 Gallery, he may see in the hand of Perugino's 
 Tobias a fish worth all these on the boards together. 
 
 Keeper and boy on bank of river. Glen Spean. Salmon in foreground. 
 Exhibited at the Water-Colour Society, Summer 1867. 
 
 9. Mushrooms and Fungi — No. 41 — Water-colour. Painted in 1873. 
 
 10. 'Fishmonger's Stalls' — Nos. 9 and 62 (not 952) — viz., No. 9, 
 'A Fishmonger's Shop.' Water-colour. Painted in 1873 ; and No. 62, 
 also ' A Fishmonger's Shop.' Water-colour. Fishmonger selling fish ; 
 lady and boy in costumes of about iSoo. Exhibited at Water-Colour 
 Society, Winter 1872-3. (The ' Tobias ' of Perugino has been already 
 alluded to, p. 64, note.) 
 
 11. No. 68. 'The Ferry.' Water-colour. Sight size, ii| X t8 in. A 
 ferry boat, in which are two figures, a boatman and a lady, approach- 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 LETTERS ON ART. [1876 
 
 Some blame of the same kind attaches to the 
 marvellous drawing No. 68. It is all very well for 
 a young artist to show how much work he can put 
 into an inch, but very painful for an old gentle- 
 man of fifty-seven to have to make out all the 
 groups through a magnifying-glass. I could say 
 something malicious about the boat, in consequence 
 of the effect of this exertion on my temper, but will 
 not, and leave with unqualified praise the remainder 
 of the lesser drawings to the attention which each 
 will variously reward. 
 
 Nor, in what I have already, it may be thought, 
 too bluntly said, ought the friends of the noble artist 
 to feel that I am unkind. It is because I know his 
 real power more deeply than any of the admirers 
 who give him indiscriminate applause, that I think 
 it right distinctly to mark the causes which pre- 
 vented his reaching heights they did not conceive, 
 and ended by placing one more tablet in the street 
 of tombs, which the passionate folly and uninstructed 
 confusion of modern English society prolong into 
 dark perspective above the graves of its youth. 
 I am, dear Marks, always very faithfully yours, 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
 ing a landing-place ; on the bank figures of villagers, and children 
 feeding swans. Exhibited at Water-Colour Society, Winter 1870-71.
 
 LETTERS ON ART. 
 
 VI. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE AND THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 
 
 1858. 
 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE AND THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 
 
 1859. 
 THE CASTLE ROCK (EDINBURGH). 1857 (Sept. 14). 
 EDINBURGH CASTLE. 1857 (Sept. 17). 
 CASTLES AND KENNELS. 1871 (Dec. 22). 
 VERONA V. WARWICK. 1871 (Dec. 24). 
 NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. 1871. 
 MR. RUSKIN'S INFLUENCE— A DEFENCE. 1872. 
 
 (March 15). 
 MR. RUSKIN'S INFLUENCE— A REJOINDER. 187?. 
 
 (March 21). 
 MODERN RESTORATION. 1S77. 
 RIBBESFORD CHURCH. 1877. 
 Circular relating to ST. MARK'S, VENICE. 1879.
 
 VI. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 From ' The Oxford Museum,' by H. W. Acland and J. Ruskin. 1859. 
 PP- 44—56. 
 
 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE AND THE OXFORD MUSEUM.* 
 
 Dear Acland, 
 
 I have been very anxious, since I last heard 
 from you, respecting the progress of the works 
 at the Museum, as I thought I could trace in your 
 expressions some doubt of an entirely satisfactory 
 issue. 
 
 Entirely satisfactory very few issues are, or can be ; 
 and when the enterprise, as in this instance, involves 
 the development of many new and progressive prin- 
 
 * In 1858 the Oxford Museum was in course of building, its archi- 
 tects being Sir Thomas Deane and Mr. Woodward, and its style modern 
 Gothic, whilst amongst those chiefly interested in it were Dr. Acland 
 (the Regius Professor of Medicine) and Mr. Ruskin. The present 
 letter, written in June 1858, was read by Dr. Acland at a lecture 
 given by him in that summer "to the members of the Architectural 
 Societies that met in Oxford " at that time. I am permitted to reprint 
 the following passage from Dr. Acland's preface to the printed lecture, 
 as well as one or two passages from the lecture itself (see below, pp. 
 190 and 192) : — " Many have yet to learn the apparently simple truth, 
 that to an Artist his Art is his means of probation in this life ; and that, 
 whatever it may have of frivolity to us, to him it is as the two or the
 
 1 82 LETTERS ON ART. [185S 
 
 ciples, we must always be prepared for a due measure 
 of disappointment — due partly to human weakness, 
 and partly to what the ancients would have called 
 fate — and we may, perhaps, most wisely call the law 
 of trial, which forbids any great good being usually 
 accomplished without various compensations and 
 deductions, probably not a little humiliating. 
 
 Perhaps in writing to you what seems to me to 
 be the bearing of matters respecting your Museum, 
 I may be answering a few of the doubts of others, 
 as well as fears of your own. 
 
 I am quite sure that when you first used your 
 influence to advocate the claims of a Gothic design, 
 you did so under the conviction, shared by all the 
 seriously purposed defenders of the Gothic style, that 
 the essence and power of Gothic, properly so called, 
 lay in its adaptability to all need ; in that perfect 
 and unlimited flexibility which would enable the 
 
 five talents, to be accounted for hereafter. I might say much on this 
 point, for the full scope of the word Art seems by some to be even 
 now unrecognized. Before the period of printing, Art was the largest 
 mode of permanently recording human thought ; it was spoken in every 
 epoch, in all countries, and delivered in almost every material. In 
 buildings, on medals and coins, in porcelain and earthenware, on wood, 
 ivory, parchment, paper and canvas, the graver or the pencil has 
 recorded the ideas of every form of society, of every variety of race 
 and of every character. What wonder that the Artist is jealous of 
 his craft, and proud of his brotherhood?" — See 'The Oxford Museum,' 
 p. 4. The reader is also referred to 'Sesame and Lilies,' 187 1 ed., 
 §§ 103-4-
 
 1858] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. I 83 
 
 architect to provide all that was required, in the 
 simplest and most convenient way ; and to give you 
 the best offices, the best lecture-rooms, laboratories, 
 and museums, which could be provided with the sum 
 of money at his disposal. 
 
 So far as the architect has failed in doing this ; so 
 far as you find yourself, with the other professors, in 
 anywise inconvenienced by forms of architecture ; so 
 far as pillars or piers come in your way, when you 
 have to point, or vaults in the way of your voice, 
 when you have to speak, or mullions in the way of 
 your light, when you want to see ; — ^just so far the 
 architect has failed in expressing his own principles, 
 or those of pure Gothic art. I do not suppose that 
 such failure has taken place to any considerable 
 extent ; but so far as it has taken place, it cannot 
 in justice be laid to the score of the st}'le, since 
 precedent has shown sufficiently, that very uncom- 
 fortable and useless rooms may be provided in all 
 other styles as well as in Gothic ; and I think if, in a 
 building arranged for many objects of various kinds, 
 at a time when the practice of architecture has been 
 somewhat confused by the inventions of modern 
 science, and is hardly yet organized completely with 
 respect to the new means at his disposal ; if, under 
 such circumstances, and with somewhat limited funds, 
 you have yet obtained a building in all main points
 
 1 84 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 properly fulfilling its requirements, you have, I think, 
 as much as could be hoped from the adoption of any 
 style whatsoever. 
 
 But I am much more anxious about the decoration 
 of the building ; for I fear that it will be hurried in 
 completion, and that, partly in haste and partly in 
 mistimed economy, a great opportunity may be lost 
 of advancing the best interest of architectural, and in 
 that, of all other arts. For the principles of Gothic 
 decoration, in themselves as simple and beautiful as 
 those of Gothic construction, are far less understood, 
 as yet, by the English public, and it is little likely 
 that any effective measures can be taken to carry 
 them out. You know, as well as I, what those prin- 
 ciples are ; yet it may be convenient to you that 
 I should here state them briefly as I accept them 
 myself, and have reason to suppose they are accepted 
 by the principal promoters of the Gothic revival, 
 
 I. The first principle of Gothic decoration is that 
 a given quantity of good art will be more generally 
 useful when exhibited on a large scale, and forming 
 part of a connected system, than when it is small and 
 separated. That is to say, a piece of sculpture or 
 painting, of a certain allowed merit, will be more 
 useful when seen on the front of a building, or at 
 the end of a room, and therefore by many persons, 
 than if it be so small as to be only capable of being
 
 1858] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. I 85 
 
 seen by one or two at a time ; and it will be more 
 useful when so combined with other work as to 
 produce that kind of impression usually termed 
 'sublime' — as it is felt on looking at any great series 
 of fixed paintings, or at the front of a cathedral — 
 than if it be so separated as to excite only a special 
 wonder or admiration, such as we feel for a jewel in 
 a cabinet. 
 
 The paintings by Meissonier in the French Exhi- 
 bition of this year were bought, I believe, before 
 the Exhibition opened, for 250 guineas each. They 
 each represented one figure, about 6 inches high 
 — one, a student reading ; the other, a courtier 
 standing in a dress-coat. Neither of these paintings 
 conveyed any information, or produced any emotion 
 whatever, except that of surprise at their minute and 
 dextrous execution. They will be placed by their 
 possessors on the walls of small private apartments, 
 where they will probably, once or twice a week, 
 form the subject of five minutes' conversation while 
 people drink their coffee after dinner. The sum 
 expended on these toys would have been amply 
 sufficient to cover a large building with noble frescoes, 
 appealing to every passer by, and representing a 
 large portion of the history of any given period. 
 But the general tendency of the European patrons 
 of art is to grudge all sums spent in a way thus
 
 1 86 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 calculated to confer benefit on the public, and to 
 grudge none for minute treasures of which the prin- 
 cipal advantage is that a lock and key can always 
 render them invisible. 
 
 I have no hesitation in saying that an acquisitive 
 selfishness, rejoicing somewhat even in the sensation 
 of possessing what can NOT be seen by others, is 
 at the root of this art-patronage. It is, of course, 
 coupled with a sense of securer and more convenient 
 investment in what may be easily protected and 
 easily carried from place to place, than in large and 
 immoveable works ; and also with a vulgar delight 
 in the minute curiosities of productive art, rather 
 than in the exercise of inventive genius, or the 
 expression of great facts or emotions. 
 
 The first aim of the Gothic Revivalists is to 
 counteract, as far as possible, this feeling on all its 
 three grounds. We desire (a) to make art large 
 and publicly beneficial, instead of small and privately 
 engrossed or secluded ; (b) to make art fixed 
 instead of portable, associating it with local character 
 and historical memory ; (c) to make art expressive 
 instead of curious, valuable for its suggestions and 
 teachings, more than for the mode of its manufacture. 
 
 II. The second great principle of the Gothic 
 Revivalists is that all art employed in decoration 
 should be informative, conveying truthful statements
 
 1858] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 1 8/ 
 
 about natural facts, if it conveys any statement. It 
 may sometimes merely compose its decorations of 
 mosaics, chequers, bosses, or other meaningless orna- 
 ments : but if it represents organic form, (and in all 
 important places it zuill represent it,) it will give that 
 form truthfully, with as much resemblance to nature 
 as the necessary treatment of the piece of ornament 
 in question will admit of. 
 
 This principle is more disputed than the first 
 among the Gothic Revivalists themselves. I, how- 
 ever, hold it simply and entirely, believing that 
 ornamentation is always, ccEteris paribus, most valu- 
 able and beautiful when it is founded on the most 
 extended knowledge of natural forms, and conveys 
 continually such knowledge to the spectator.* 
 
 III. The third great principle of the Gothic 
 Revival is that all architectural ornamentation should 
 be executed by the men who design it, and should 
 be of various degrees of excellence, admitting, and 
 therefore exciting, the intelligent co-operation of 
 various classes of workmen ; and that a great public 
 edifice should be, in sculpture and painting, some- 
 what the same as a great chorus of music, in which, 
 while, perhaps, there may be only one or two voices 
 perfectly trained, and of perfect sweetness, (the rest 
 being in various degrees weaker and less cultivated,) 
 
 * See next letter, pp. 209 seqq.
 
 1 88 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 yet all being ruled in harmony, and each sustaining 
 a part consistent with its strength, the body of sound 
 is sublime, in spite of individual weaknesses. 
 
 The Museum at Oxford was, I know, intended by 
 its designer to exhibit in its decoration the working 
 of these three principles ; but in the very fact of its 
 doing so, it becomes exposed to chances of occasional 
 failure, or even to serious discomfitures, such as 
 would not at all have attended the adoption of an 
 established mode of modern work. It is easy to 
 carve capitals on models known for four thousand 
 years, and impossible to fail in the application of 
 mechanical methods and formalized rules. But it 
 is not possible to appeal vigorously to new canons 
 of judgment without the chance of giving offence ; 
 nor to summon into service the various phases of 
 human temper and intelligence, without occasionally 
 finding the tempers rough and the intelligence feeble. 
 The Oxford Museum is, I believe, the first building 
 in this country which has had its ornamentation, in 
 any telling parts, trusted to the invention of the 
 workman : the result is highly satisfactory, the pro- 
 jecting windows of the staircases being as beautiful 
 in effect as anything I know in civil Gothic : but far 
 more may be accomplished for the building if the 
 completion of its carving be not hastened ; many 
 men of high artistic power might be brought to
 
 1858] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 1 89 
 
 take an interest in it, and various lessons and 
 suggestions given to the workmen which would 
 materially advantage the final decoration of leading 
 features. No very great Gothic building, so far as 
 I know, was ever yet completed without some of 
 this wise deliberation and fruitful patience. 
 
 I was in hopes from the beginning that the 
 sculpture might have been rendered typically illus- 
 trative of the English Flora : how far this idea 
 has been as yet carried out I do not know ; but 
 I know that it cannot be properly carried out 
 without a careful examination of the available 
 character of the principal genera, such as architects 
 have not hitherto undertaken. The proposal which 
 I heard advanced the other day, of adding a bold 
 entrance-porch to the facade, appeared to me every 
 way full of advantage, the blankness of the fa9ade 
 having been, to my mind, from the first, a serious 
 fault in the design. If a subscription were opened 
 for the purpose of erecting one, I should think there 
 were few persons interested in modern art who would 
 not be glad to join in forwarding such an object. 
 
 I think I could answer for some portions of the 
 design being superintended by the best of our 
 modern sculptors and painters ; and I believe that, 
 if so superintended, the porch might and would 
 become the crowning beauty of the building, and
 
 190 LETTERS ON ART. [1858 
 
 make all the difference between its being only a 
 satisfactory and meritorious work, or a most lovely 
 and impressive one. 
 
 The interior decoration is a matter of much 
 greater difficulty ; perhaps you will allow me to 
 defer the few words I have to say about it till I 
 have time for another letter : which, however, I 
 hope to find speedily. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Acknd, 
 
 Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 J. RUSKIN.* 
 
 * After reading this letter to his audience, Dr. Acland thus con- 
 tinued: — "The principles thus clearly enumerated by Mr. Ruskin are, 
 on the main, those that animate the earnest student of Gothic. It is 
 not for me especially to advocate Gothic Art, but only to urge, that if 
 called into life, it should be in conformity to its own proper laws of 
 vitality. If week after week, in my youth, with fresh senses and a 
 docile spirit, I have drank in each golden glow that is poured by a 
 Mediterranean sun from over the blue yEgsean upon the Athenian 
 Parthenon, — if, day by day, sitting on Mars' Hill, I have watched 
 each purple shadow, as the temple darkened in majesty against the 
 evening sky, — if so, it has been to teach me, as the alphabet of all 
 Art, to love all truth and to hate all falsehood, and to kiss the hand 
 of eveiy Master who has brought down, under whatever circum- 
 stance, and in whatever age, one spark of true light from the Beauty 
 and the subtle Law which stamps the meanest work of the Ever-living, 
 Ever-working Artist." — ('The Oxford Museum,' pp. 56-7.)
 
 i859] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. I9I 
 
 From 'The Oxford Museum,' pp. 60 — 90. 
 
 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE AND THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 
 
 My dear Acland, 
 
 ■I was not able to write, as I had hoped, 
 from Switzerland, for I found it impossible to lay 
 down any principles respecting the decoration of 
 the Museum which did not in one way or other 
 involve disputed points, too many, and too subtle, 
 to be discussed in a letter. Nor do I feel the 
 difficulty less in writing to you now, so far as 
 regards the question occurring in our late conver- 
 sations, respecting the best mode of completing 
 these interior decorations. Yet I must write, if 
 only to ask that I may be in some way associated 
 with you in what you are now doing to bring the 
 Museum more definitely before the public mind — 
 that I may be associated at least in the expression 
 of my deep sense of the noble purpose of the build- 
 ing — of the noble sincerity of effort in its architect 
 — of the endless good which the teachings to which 
 it will be devoted must, in their ultimate issue, 
 accomplish for mankind. How vast the range of 
 that issue, you have shown in the lecture which I 
 have just read, in which you have so admirably
 
 192 LETTERS ON ART. [1859 
 
 traced the chain of the physical sciences as it 
 encompasses the great concords of this visible 
 universe* But how deep the workings of these 
 new springs of knowledge are to be — and how 
 great our need of them — and how far the bright- 
 ness and the beneficence of them are to reach 
 among all the best interests of men — perhaps none 
 of us can yet conceive, far less know or say. For, 
 much as I reverence physical science as a means of 
 mental education, (and you know how I have con- 
 tended for it, as such, now these twenty years, from 
 the sunny afternoon of spring when Ehrenberg, and 
 
 * See 'The Oxford Museum,' pp. 17 — 23. The following is a portion 
 of the passage alluded to: — "Without the Geologist on one side, and 
 the Anatomist and Physiologist on the other, Zoology is not worthy 
 of its name. The student of life, bearing in mind the more general 
 laws which in the several departments above named he will have 
 sought to appreciate, will find in the collections of Zoology, combined 
 with the Geological specimens and the dissections of the Anatomist, 
 a boundless field of interest and of inquiry, to which almost every other 
 science lends its aid : from each science he borrows a special light to 
 guide him through the ranges of extinct and existing animal forms, from 
 the lowest up to the highest types, which, last and most perfect, but 
 preshadowed in previous ages, is seen in Man. By the aid of physio- 
 logical illustrations he begins to understand how hard to unravel are the 
 complex mechanisms and prescient intentions of the Maker of all ; and 
 he slowly learns to appreciate what exquisite care is needed for discover- 
 ing the real action of even an apparently comprehended machine. And 
 so at last, almost bewildered, but not cast down, he attempts to scrutinize 
 in the rooms devoted to Medicine, the various injuries which man is 
 doomed to undergo in his progress towards death ; he begins to revere 
 the beneficent contrivances which shine forth in the midst of suffering and
 
 1859] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 1 93 
 
 you, and I, went hunting for infusoria in Christ- 
 church meadow streams, to the hour when the prize 
 offered by Sir Walter Trevelyan and yourself for the 
 best essay on the Fauna of that meadow, marked 
 the opening of a new era in English education*) — 
 much, I say, as I reverence physical science in this 
 function, I reverence it, at this moment, more as the 
 source of utmost human practical power, and the 
 means by which the far-distant races of the world, 
 who now sit in darkness and the shadow of death, 
 are to be reached and regenerated. At home or 
 far away — the call is equally instant — here, for want 
 of more extended physical science, there is plague in 
 
 disease, and to veil his face before the mysterious alterations of structure, 
 to which there seem attached pain, with scarce relief, and a steady 
 advance, without a check, to death. He will look, and as he looks, will 
 cherish hope, not unmixed with prayer, that the great Art of Healing 
 may by all these things advance, and that by the progress of profounder 
 science, by the spread among the people of the resultant practical 
 knowledge, by stricter obedience to physiological laws, by a consequent 
 more self-denying spirit, some disorders may at a future day be cured, 
 which cannot be prevented, and some, perhaps, prevented, which never 
 can be cured." 
 
 * Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, the naturalist and author of many 
 works, of which those on infusoria may be especially noted here. 
 He was born in 1795, and in 1842 was elected Principal Secretary 
 to the Berlin Academy of Science, which post he held till his death 
 in 1876. The late Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, Bart., will also 
 be remembered in connection with the study of natural science, as 
 well as for his efforts in philanthropy. He died in March, 1879. I 
 have been unable to find any further information as to the prize men- 
 tioned by Mr. Ruskin, or as to the essay which obtained it. 
 
 13
 
 194 LETTERS ON ART. [1859 
 
 our Streets, famine in our fields ; the pest strikes 
 root and fruit over a hemisphere of the earth, we 
 know not why ; the voices of our children fade away 
 into silence of venomous death, we know not why ; 
 the population of this most civilized country resists 
 every effort to lead it into purity of habit and 
 habitation, — to give it genuineness of nourishment, 
 and wholesomeness of air, as a new interference 
 with its liberty ; and insists vociferously on its right 
 to helpless death. All this is terrible ; but it is 
 more terrible yet that dim, phosphorescent, frightful 
 superstitions still hold their own over two-thirds ot 
 the inhabited globe, and that all the phenomena of 
 nature which were intended by the Creator to enforce 
 His eternal laws of love and judgment, and which, 
 rightly understood, enforce them more strongly by 
 their patient beneficence, and their salutary destruc- 
 tiveness, than the miraculous dew on Gideon's fleece, 
 or the restrained lightnings of Horeb — that all these 
 legends of God's daily dealing with His creatures 
 remain unread, or are read backwards, into blind, 
 hundred-armed horror of idol cosmogony. 
 
 How strange it seems that physical science should 
 ever have been thought adverse to religion ! The 
 pride of physical science is, indeed, adverse, like 
 every other pride, both to religion and truth ; but 
 sincerity of science, so far from being hostile, is the
 
 1859] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 1 95 
 
 path-maker among the mountains for the feet of 
 those who pubHsh peace. ( 
 
 Now, therefore, and now only, it seems to mc, 
 the University has become complete in her function 
 as a teacher of the youth of the nation to which 
 every hour gives wider authority over distant lands ; 
 and from which every rood of extended dominion 
 demands new, various, and variously applicable 
 knowledge of the laws which govern the constitu- 
 tion of the globe, and must finally regulate the 
 industry, no less than discipline the intellect, of the 
 human race. I can hardly turn my mind from these 
 deep causes of exultation to the minor difficulties 
 which beset or restrict your undertaking. The great 
 work is accomplished ; the immediate impression 
 made by it is of little importance ; and as for my 
 owai special subjects of thought or aim, though many 
 of them are closely involved in what has been done, 
 and some principles which I believe to be, in their 
 way, of great importance, are awkwardly compro- 
 mised in what has been imperfectly done, — all these 
 I am tempted to waive, or content to compromi.se, 
 when only I know that the building is in main 
 points fit for its mighty work. Yet you will not 
 think that it was matter of indifference to me 
 when I saw, as I went over Professor Brodie's * 
 
 * Mr. Brodie, wlio succeeded his father as Sir Benjamin Brodie in 
 1867, was appointed Professor of Chemistry at Oxford in 1855.
 
 196 LETTERS ON ART. [1859 
 
 chemical laboratories the other day, how closely 
 this success of adaptation was connected with the 
 choice of the style. It was very touching and 
 wonderful to me. Here was the architecture which 
 I had learned to know and love in pensive ruins, 
 deserted by the hopes and efforts of men, or in 
 dismantled fortress-fragments recording only their 
 cruelty ; — here was this very architecture lending 
 itself, as if created only for these, to the foremost 
 activities of human discovery, and the tenderest 
 functions of human mercy. No other architecture, 
 as I felt in an instant, could have thus adapted itself 
 to a new and strange office. No fixed arrangements 
 of frieze and pillar, nor accepted proportions of 
 wall and roof, nor practised refinement of classical 
 decoration, could have otherwise than absurdly and 
 fantastically yielded its bed to the crucible, and its 
 blast to the furnace ; but these old vaultings and 
 strong buttresses — ready always to do service to 
 man, whatever his bidding — to shake the waves of 
 war back from his seats of rock, or prolong through 
 faint twilights of sanctuary, the sighs of his super- 
 stition — he had but to ask it of them, and they 
 entered at once into the lowliest ministries of the 
 arts of healing, and the sternest and clearest offices 
 in the service of science. 
 
 And the longer I examined the Museum arrange-
 
 1859] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 1 97 
 
 ments, the more I felt that it could be only some 
 accidental delay in the recognition of this efficiency 
 for its work which had caused any feeling adverse to 
 its progress among the members of the University 
 The general idea about the Museum has perhaps 
 been, hitherto, that it is a forced endeavour to bring 
 decorative forms of architecture into uncongenial 
 uses — whereas, the real fact is, as far as I can dis- 
 cern it, that no other architecture would, under the 
 required circumstances, have been possible ; and that 
 any effort to introduce classical types of form into 
 these laboratories and museums must have ended in 
 ludicrous discomfiture. But the building has now 
 reached a point of crisis, and it depends upon the 
 treatment which its rooms now receive in comple- 
 tion, whether the facts of their propriety and utility 
 be acknowledged by the public, or lost sight of in 
 the distraction of their attention to matters wholly 
 external. 
 
 So strongly I feel this, that, whatever means of 
 decoration had been at your disposal, I should have 
 been inclined to recommend an exceeding reserve in 
 that matter. Perhaps I should even have desired 
 such reserve on abstract grounds of feeling. The 
 study of Natural History is one eminently addressed 
 to the active energies of body and mind. Nothing 
 is to be got out of it by dreaming, not always much
 
 198 ' LETTERS ON ART. [1859 
 
 by thinking, — everything by seeking and seeing. It 
 is work for the hills and fields — work of foot and 
 hand, knife and hammer, — so far as it is to be after- 
 wards carried on in the house, the more active and 
 workmanlike our proceedings the better, fresh air 
 blowing in from the windows, and nothing interfering 
 with the free space for our shelves and instru- 
 ments on the walls. I am not sure that much 
 interior imagery or colour, or other exciting address 
 to any of the observant faculties, would be desirable 
 under such circumstances. You know best; but I 
 should no more think of painting in bright colours 
 beside you, while you were dissecting or analyzing, 
 than of entertaining you by a concert of fifes and 
 cymbals. 
 
 But farther — do you suppose Gothic decoration is 
 an easy thing, or that it is to be carried out with a 
 certainty of success at the first trial, under new and 
 difficult conditions .-* The system of the Gothic 
 decorations took eight hundred years to mature, 
 gathering its power by undivided inheritance of 
 traditional method, and unbroken accession of sys- 
 tematic power ; from its culminating point in the 
 Sainte Chapelle, it faded through four hundred years 
 of splendid decline ; now for two centuries it has 
 lS.in dead — and more than so — buried ; and more 
 than so, forgotten, as a dead man out of mind ; do
 
 1859] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 1 99 
 
 you expect to revive it out of those retorts and 
 furnaces of yours, as the cloud-spirit of the Arabian 
 sea rose from beneath the seals of Solomon ? Per- 
 haps I have been myself faultfully answerable for 
 this too eager hope in your mind (as well as in that 
 of others) by what I have urged so often respecting 
 the duty of bringing out the power of subordinate 
 workmen in decorative design. But do you think 
 I meant workmen trained (or untrained) in the way 
 that ours have been until lately, and then cast loose 
 on a sudden, into unassisted contentions with unknown 
 elements of style .'' I meant the precise contrary of 
 this ; I meant workmen as we have yet to create 
 them : men inheriting the instincts of their craft 
 through many generations, rigidly trained in every 
 mechanical art that bears on their materials, and fami- 
 liarized from infancy with every condition of their 
 beautiful and perfect treatment ; informed and refined 
 in manhood, by constant observation of all natural 
 fact and form ; then classed, according to their 
 proved capacities, in ordered companies, in w'hich 
 every man shall know his part, and take it calmly 
 and without effort or doubt — indisputably well, — 
 unaccusably accomplished — mailed and weaponed 
 cap-a-pie for his place and function. Can you lay 
 your hand on such men } or do you think that 
 mere natural grood-will and good-feeling can at once
 
 200 LETTERS ON ART. [1859 
 
 supply their place? Not so — and the more faithful 
 and earnest the minds you have to deal with, the 
 more careful you should be not to urge them towards 
 fields of effort, in which, too early committed, they 
 can only be put to unserviceable defeat. 
 
 Nor can you hope to accomplish by rule or system 
 what cannot be done by individual taste. The laws 
 of colour are definable up to certain limits, but they 
 are not yet defined. So far are they from definition, 
 that the last, and, on the whole, best work on the 
 subject (Sir Gardner Wilkinson's) declares the "colour 
 concords " of preceding authors to be discords, and 
 vice versa. 
 
 Much, therefore, as I love colour decoration when 
 it is rightly given, and essential as it has been felt 
 by the great architects of all periods to the com- 
 pletion of their work, I would not, in your place, 
 endeavour to carry out such decoration at present, 
 in any elaborate degree, in the interior of the 
 Museum. Leave it for future thought ; above all, 
 try no experiments. Let small drawings be made 
 of the proposed arrangements of colour in every 
 room ; have them altered on the paper till you 
 feel they are right ; then carry them out firmly 
 and simply ; but, observe, with as delicate execution 
 
 * Sir Gardner Wilkinson's book ' On Colour and the Diffusion of 
 Taste' was published in 1858.
 
 1859] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 20I 
 
 as possible. Rough work is good in its place, three 
 hundred feet above the eye, on a cathedral front, 
 but not in the interior of rooms, devoted to studies 
 in which everything depends upon accuracy of touch 
 and keenness of sight. 
 
 With respect to this finishing, by the last touches 
 bestowed on the sculpture of the building, I feel pain- 
 fully the harmfulness of any ill-advised parsimony 
 at this moment. For it may, perhaps, be alleged 
 by the advocates of retrenchment, that so long as 
 the building is fit for its uses (and your report is 
 conclusive as to its being so), economy in treat- 
 ment of external feature is perfectly allowable, and 
 will in nowise diminish the serviceableness of the 
 building in the great objects which its designs 
 regarded. To a certain extent this is true. You 
 have comfortable rooms, I hope sufficient apparatus ; 
 and it now depends much more on the professors 
 than on the ornaments of the building, whether 
 or not it is to become a bright or obscure centre 
 of public instruction. Yet there are other points 
 to be considered. As the building stands at present, 
 there is a discouraging aspect of parsimony about 
 it. One sees that the architect has done the utmost 
 he could with the means at his disposal, and that 
 just at the point of reaching what was right, he 
 has been stopped for want of fimds. This is visible
 
 V 
 
 2 02 LETTERS ON ART. [1859 
 
 in almost every stone of the edifice. It separates 
 it with broad distinctiveness from all the other 
 buildings in the University. It may be seen at 
 once that our other public institutions, and all our 
 colleges — though some of them simply designed — 
 are yet richly built, never pinchingly. Pieces ot 
 princely costliness, every here and there, mingle 
 among the simplicities or severities of the student's 
 life.. What practical need, for instance, have we at 
 Christchurch of the beautiful fan-vaulting under 
 which we ascend to dine } We might have as 
 easily achieved the eminence of our banquets under 
 a plain vault. What need have the readers in the 
 Bodleian of the ribbed traceries which decorate its 
 external walls .? Yet, which of those readers would^- 
 not think that learning was insulted by their removal .-' /; 
 And are there any of the students of Balliol devoid"^ 
 of gratitude for the kindly munificence of the man 
 who gave them the beautiful sculptured brackets 
 of their oriel window, when three massy project- 
 ing stones would have answered the purpose just 
 as well } In these and also other regarded and 
 pleasant portions of our colleges, we find always 
 a wealthy and worthy completion of all appointed 
 features, which I believe is not without strong, 
 though untraced effect, on the minds of the- younger 
 scholars, giving them respect for the branches of
 
 1859] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 203 
 
 learning which these buildings are intended to 
 honour, and increasing, in a certain degree, that 
 sense of the value of delicacy and accuracy which 
 is the first condition of advance in those branches 
 of learning themselves. 
 
 Your Museum, if you now bring it to hurried 
 completion, will convey an impression directly the 
 reverse of this. It will have the look of a place, 
 not where a revered system of instruction is esta- 
 blished, but where an unadvised experiment is being 
 disadvantageously attempted. It is yet in your 
 power to avoid this, and to make the edifice as 
 noble in aspect as in function. Whatever chance 
 there ma}' be of failure in interior work, rich orna- 
 mentation may be given, without any chance of 
 failure, to just that portion of the exterior which 
 will give pleasure to every passer-by, and express 
 the meaning of the building best to the eyes of 
 strangers. There is, I repeat, no chance of serious 
 failure in this external decoration, because your 
 architect has at his command the aid of men, such 
 as worked with the architects of past times. Not 
 only has the art of Gothic sculpture in part remained, 
 though that of Gothic colour has been long lost, 
 but the unselfish — and, I regret to say, in part self- 
 sacrificing — zeal of two first-rate sculptors, Mr. Munro 
 and Mr. Woolner, which has already given you a
 
 204 LETTERS ON ART. [1859 
 
 series of noble statues, is still at your disposal, to head 
 and systematize the efforts of inferior workmen. 
 
 I do not know if you will attribute it to a 
 higher estimate than yours of the genius of the 
 O'Shea family,* or to a lower estimate of what 
 they have as yet accomplished, that I believe they 
 will, as they proceed, produce much better orna- 
 mental sculpture than any at present completed in 
 the Museum. It is also to be remembered that 
 sculptors are able to work for us with a directness 
 of meaning which none of our painters could bring 
 to their task, even were they disposed to help us. 
 A painter is scarcely excited to his strength, but 
 by subjects full of circumstance, such as it would 
 be difficult to suggest appropriately in the present 
 building ; but a sculptor has room enough for his 
 full power in the portrait statues, which are neces- 
 sarily the leading features of good Gothic decoration. 
 Let me pray you, therefore, so far as you have 
 influence with the delegacy, to entreat their favour- 
 able consideration of the project stated in ]\Ir. 
 Greswell's appeal, — the enrichment of the doorway, 
 and the completion of the sculpture of the West 
 Front. There is a reason for desiring such a plan 
 to be carried out, of wider reach than any bearing 
 on the interests of the Museum itself. I believe 
 
 * See note to p. 208.
 
 i8S9] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 20 5 
 
 that the elevation of all arts in England to their 
 true dignity, depends principally on our recovering 
 that unity of purpose in sculptors and architects, 
 which characterized the designers of all great 
 Christian buildings. Sculpture, separated from 
 architecture, always degenerates into effeminacies 
 and conceits ; architecture, stripped of sculpture, is 
 at best a convenient arrangement of dead walls ; 
 associated, they not only adorn, but reciprocally 
 exalt each other, and give to all the arts of the 
 country in which they thus exist, a correspondent 
 tone of majesty. 
 
 But I would plead for the enrichment of this 
 doorway by portrait sculpture, not so much even 
 on any of these important grounds, as because it 
 would be the first example in modern English 
 architecture of the real value and right place of 
 commemorative statues. We seem never to know 
 at present where to put such statues. In the 
 midst of the blighted trees of desolate squares, or 
 at the crossings of confused streets, or balanced on 
 the pinnacles of pillars, or riding across the tops 
 of triumphal arches, or blocking up the aisles of 
 cathedrals, — in none of these positions, I think, does 
 the portrait statue answer its purpose. It may be 
 a question whether the erection of such statues is 
 honourable to the erectors, but assuredly it is not
 
 206 LETTERS ON ART. [1859 
 
 honourable to the persons whom it pretends to 
 commemorate ; nor is it any wise matter of exul- 
 tation to a man who has deserved well of his 
 country, to reflect that he may one day encumber 
 a crossing, or disfigure a park gate. But there is 
 no man of worth or heart, who would not feel it 
 a high and priceless reward that his statue should 
 be placed where it might remind the youth of 
 England of what had been exemplary in his life, 
 or useful in his labours, and might be regarded with 
 no empty reverence, no fruitless pensiveness, but 
 with the emulative, eager, unstinted passionateness 
 of honour, which youth pays to the dead leaders 
 of the cause it loves, or discoverers of the light 
 by which it lives. To be buried under w^eight of 
 marble, or with splendour of ceremonial, is still no 
 more than burial; but to be remembered daily, with 
 profitable tenderness, by the activest intelligences of 
 the nation we have served, and to have power granted 
 even to the shadows of the poor features, sunk 
 into dust, still to warn, to animate, to command, 
 as the father's brow rules and exalts the toil of his 
 children. This is not burial, but immortality. 
 
 There is, however, another kind of portraiture, 
 already richly introduced in the works of the 
 Museum ; the portraiture, namely, of flowers and 
 animals, respecting which I must ask you to let
 
 1859] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 20/ 
 
 me say a few selfish, no less than congratulatory 
 words : — selfish, inasmuch as they bear on this 
 visible exposition of a principle which it has long 
 been one of my most earnest aims to maintain. 
 We English call ourselves a practical people ; but, 
 nevertheless, there are some of our best and most 
 general instincts which it takes us half-centuries to 
 put into practice. Probably no educated English- 
 man or Englishwoman has ever, for the last forty 
 years, visited Scotland, with leisure on their hands, 
 without making a pilgrimage to Melrose ; nor have 
 they ever, I suppose, accomplished the pilgrimage 
 without singing to themselves the burden of Scott's 
 description of the Abbey. Nor in that description 
 (may it not also be conjectured .?) do they usually 
 feel any couplets more deeply than the — 
 
 " Spreading herbs and flowerets bright 
 Ghstened with the dew of night. 
 No herb nor floweret glistened there 
 But was carved in the cloister arches as fair." 
 
 And yet, though we are raising every year in 
 England new examples of every kind of costly and 
 variously intended buildings, — ecclesiastical, civil, 
 and domestic, — none of us, through all that period, 
 had boldness enough to put the pretty couplets into 
 simple practice. We went on, even in the best 
 Gothic work we attempted, clumsily copying the
 
 208 LETTERS ON ART. [1859 
 
 rudest ornaments of previous buildings ; we never 
 so much as dreamed of learning from the monks 
 of Melrose, and seeking for help beneath the dew 
 that sparkled on their " gude kail " garden.* 
 
 Your Museum at Oxford is literally the first 
 building raised in England since the close of the 
 fifteenth century, which has fearlessly put to new 
 trial this old faith in nature, and in the genius of the 
 unassisted workman, who gathered out of nature the 
 materials he needed. I am entirely glad, therefore, 
 that you have decided on engraving for publication 
 one of O'Shea's capitals ;t it will be a complete 
 type of the whole work, in its inner meaning, and far 
 better to show one of them in its completeness, 
 than to give any reduced sketch of the building. 
 Nevertheless, beautiful as that capital is, and as all 
 the rest of O'Shea's work is likely to be, it is not 
 yet perfect Gothic sculpture ; and it might give rise 
 
 * " The monks of Melrose made good kail 
 On Friday, when they fasted." 
 
 The kail leaf is the one principally employed in the decorations of the 
 abbey. (Original note to 'The Oxford Museum,' p. 83.) 
 
 f This engraving, which formed the frontispiece of ' The Oxford 
 Museum,' will be found facing the title-page of the present volume, the 
 original plate having proved in excellent condition. O'Shea was, to- 
 gether with others of his name and family, amongst the principal 
 workmen on the building. The capital represents the following ferns : 
 the common hart's-tongue (scolopendrium vulgare), the northern hard- 
 fern (blechnum boreale), and the male fern (filix mas).
 
 1859J THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 209 
 
 to dangerous error, if the admiration given to these 
 carvings were unquahfied. 
 
 I cannot, of course, enter in this letter into any 
 discussion of the question, more and more vexed 
 among us daily, respecting the due meaning and 
 scope of conventionalism in treatment of natural 
 form ; but I may state briefly what, I trust, will be 
 the conclusion to which all this " vexing " will at last 
 lead our best architects. 
 
 The highest art in all kinds is that which conveys 
 the most truth ; and the best ornamentation possible 
 would be the painting of interior walls with frescoes 
 by Titian, representing perfect Humanity in colour ; 
 and the sculpture of exterior walls by Phidias, re- 
 presenting perfect Humanity in form. Titian and 
 Phidias are precisely alike in their conception and 
 treatment of nature — everlasting standards of the 
 right. 
 
 Beneath ornamentation, such as men like these 
 could bestow, falls in various rank, according to 
 its subordination to vulgar uses or inferior places, 
 what is commonly conceived as ornamental art. 
 The lower its office, and the less tractable its 
 material, the less of nature it should contain, 
 until a zigzag becomes the best ornament for the 
 hem of a robe, and a mosaic of bits of glass the 
 best design for a coloured window. But all these 
 
 14
 
 2IO LETTERS ON ART. [1859 
 
 forms of lower art are to be conventional only 
 because they are subordinate : — not because con- 
 ventionalism is in itself a good or desirable thing. 
 All right conventionalism is a wise acceptance of, 
 and compliance with, conditions of restraint or infe- 
 riority ; — it may be inferiority of our knowledge or 
 power — as in the art of a semi-savage nation ; or 
 restraint by reason of material — as in the way the 
 glass painter should restrict himself to transparent 
 hue, and a sculptor deny himself the eyelash and 
 the film of flowing hair, which he cannot cut in 
 marble ; — but in all cases whatever, right conven- 
 tionalism is either a wise acceptance of an inferior 
 place, or a noble display of power under accepted 
 limitation : it is not an improvement of natural form 
 into something better or purer than Nature herself. 
 
 Now this great and most precious principle may 
 be compromised in two quite opposite ways. It is 
 compromised on one side when men suppose that 
 the degradation of a natural form which fits it for 
 some subordinate place is an improvement of it ; 
 and that a black profile on a red ground, because 
 it is proper on a water-jug, is therefore an idealiza- 
 tion of Humanity, and nobler art than a picture of 
 Titian. And it is compromised equally gravely on 
 the opposite side, when men refuse to submit to the 
 limitation of material and the fitnesses of office ; —
 
 1859] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 2 I I 
 
 when they try to produce finished pictures in coloured 
 glass, or substitute the inconsiderate imitation of 
 natural objects for the perfectness of adapted and 
 disciplined design. 
 
 There is a tendency in the work of the Oxford 
 Museum to err on this last side; unavoidable, indeed, 
 in the present state of our art-knowledge — and less 
 to be regretted in a building devoted to natural 
 science than in any other : nevertheless, I cannot 
 close this letter without pointing it out, and warning 
 the general reader against supposing that the orna- 
 mentation of the Museum is, or can be as yet, a 
 representation of what Gothic work will be, when its 
 revival is complete. Far more severe, yet more 
 perfect and lovely, that work will involve, under 
 sterner conventional restraint, the expression not 
 only of natural form, but of all vital and noble 
 natural law. For the truth of decoration is never 
 to be measured by its imitative power, but by its 
 suggestive and informative power. In the annexed 
 spandril of the iron-work of our roof, for instance, 
 the horse-chesnut leaf and nut are used as the 
 principal elements of form; they are not ill-arranged, 
 and produce a more agreeable effect than convo- 
 lutions of the iron could have given, unhelped by 
 any reference to natural objects. Nevertheless, I do 
 not call it an absolutely good design ; for it would
 
 "^12 LETTERS ON ART. [1859 
 
 have been possible, with far severer conventional 
 
 (From 'The Oxford Museum, p. 89.) 
 
 treatment of the iron bars, and stronger constructive 
 arrangement of them, to have given vigorous expres-
 
 k 
 
 1859] THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 213 
 
 sion, not of the shapes of leaves and nuts only, but 
 of their peculiar radiant or fanned expansion, and 
 other conditions of group and growth in the tree ; 
 which would have been just the more beautiful and 
 interesting, as they would have arisen from deeper 
 research into nature, and more adaptive modifying 
 power in the designer's mind, than the mere leaf 
 termination of a riveted scroll. 
 
 I am compelled to name these deficiencies, in 
 order to prevent misconception of the principles we 
 are endeavouring to enforce ; but I do not name 
 them as at present to be avoided, or even much to 
 be regretted. They are not chargeable either on 
 the architect, or on the subordinate workmen ; but 
 only on the system which has for three centuries 
 withheld all of us from healthy study ; and although 
 I doubt not that lovelier and juster expressions 
 of the Gothic principle will be ultimately aimed at 
 by us, than any which are possible in the Oxford 
 Museum, its builders will never lose their claim to 
 our chief gratitude, as the first guides in a right 
 direction ; and the building itself — the first exponent 
 of the recovered truth — will only be the more vene- 
 rated the more it is excelled. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Acland, 
 
 Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 J. RUSKIX.
 
 2 14 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 From 'The Witness' (Edinburgh), September 16, 1857. 
 
 THE CASTLE ROCK. 
 To the Editor of^ The Witness.'' 
 
 Dunbar, \\th September, 1857. 
 
 My dear Sir, — As I was leaving Edinburgh this 
 morning, I heard a report which gave me more 
 concern than I can easily express, and very suffi- 
 ciently spoiled the pleasure of my drive here. If 
 there be no truth in the said report, of course 
 take no notice of this letter ; but if there be real 
 ground for my fears, I trust you will allow me 
 space in your columns for a few words on the 
 subject. 
 
 The whisper — I hope I may say, the calumny — 
 regarded certain proceedings which are taking place 
 at the Castle. It was said to be the architect's 
 intention to cut down into the brow of the Castle 
 rock, in order to afford secure foundation for some 
 new buildings.* 
 
 Now, the Castle rock of Edinburgh is, as far 
 as I know, simply the noblest in Scotland conve- 
 niently approachable by any creatures but sea-gulls 
 or peewits. Ailsa and the Bass are of course more 
 wonderful ; and, I suppose, in the West Highlands 
 there are masses of crag more wild and fantastic ; 
 
 * A new armoury was to be added to the Castle. 
 
 1
 
 i857] THE CASTLE ROCK. 2 I 5 
 
 but people only go to see these once or twice in 
 their lives, while the Castle Rock has a daily- 
 influence in forming the taste, or kindling the 
 imagination, of every promising youth in Edin- 
 burgh. Even irrespectively of its position, it is a 
 mass of singular importance among the rocks of 
 Scotland. It is not easy to find among your 
 mountains a " craig " of so definite a form, and en 
 so magnificent a scale. Among the central hills of 
 Scotland, from Ben Wyvis to the Lammermuirs, I 
 know of none comparable to it ; while, besides 
 being bold and vast, its bars of basalt are so nobly 
 arranged, and form a series of curves at once so 
 majestic and harmonious, from the turf at their 
 base to the roots of the bastions, that, as long as 
 your artists have that crag to study, I do not see 
 that they need casts from Michael Angelo, or any 
 one else, to teach them the laws of composition or 
 the sources of sublimity. 
 
 But if you once cut into the brow of it, all is 
 over. Disturb, in any single point, the simple lines 
 in which the walls now advance and recede upon 
 the tufted grass of its summit, and you may as 
 well make a quarry of it at once, and blast away 
 rock. Castle, and all. It admits of some question 
 whether the changes made in the architecture of 
 your city of late years are in every case improve-
 
 2l6 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 ments ; but very certainly you cannot improve the 
 architecture of your volcanic crags by any explo- 
 sive retouches. And your error will be wholly 
 irremediable. You may restore Trinity Chapel, or 
 repudiate its restoration, at your pleasure, but there 
 will be no need to repudiate restoration of the 
 Castle rock. You cannot re-face nor re-rivet that, 
 nor order another in a " similar style." It is a 
 dangerous kind of engraving which you practise on 
 so large a jewel. But I trust I am wasting my 
 time in writing of this : I cannot believe the report, 
 nor think that the people of Edinburgh, usually so 
 proud of their city, are yet so unaware of what 
 constitutes its chief nobleness, and so utterly care- 
 less of the very features of its scenery, which have 
 been the means of the highest and purest educa- 
 tion to their greatest men, as to allow this rock to 
 be touched. If the works are confined to the 
 inside of the wall, no harm will be done ; but let 
 a single buttress, or a single cleft, encumber or 
 divide its outer brow, and there is not a man of 
 sensibility or sense in Edinburgh who will not 
 blush and grieve for it as long as he lives. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours, 
 
 J. RUSKIN.
 
 1857] EDINBURGH CASTLE. 21/ 
 
 From ' The Witness ' (Edinburgh), September 30, 1S57. 
 
 EDINBURGH CASTLE. 
 To the Editor of ' The Witness.' 
 
 Penrith, 27//^ September. 
 My dear Sir, — I see by some remarks in the 
 Literary Gazette * on the letter of mine to which 
 you gave a place in your columns of the i6th, 
 that the design of the proposed additions to 
 Edinburgh Castle is receiving really serious consi- 
 deration. Perhaps, therefore, a few words respecting 
 the popular but usually unprofitable business of 
 castle-building may be of some interest to your 
 readers. We are often a little confused in our 
 ideas respecting the nature of a castle — properly 
 so called. A " castle " is a fortified dwelling-house 
 containing accommodation for as many retainers as 
 are needed completely to defend its position. A 
 " fortress " is a fortified military position, generally 
 understood to be extensive enough to contain large 
 bodies of troops. And a " citadel," a fortified mili- 
 tary position connected with a fortified town, and 
 capable of holding out even if the town were 
 taken. 
 
 * The Literary Gazette ot September 26, 1857, after quoting a great 
 part of the previous letter, stated that the new armoury was not to be 
 built without all due regard to the preservation of the rock, and that 
 there was therefore no real cause for alarm.
 
 2l8 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 It is as well to be clear on these points : for 
 certain conditions of architecture are applicable and 
 beautiful in each case, according to the use and 
 character of the building ; and certain other con- 
 ditions are in like manner inapplicable and ugly, 
 because contrary to its character, and unhelpful to 
 its use. 
 
 Now this helpfulness and unhelpfulness in archi- 
 tectural features depends, of course, primarily on the 
 military practice of the time ; so that forms which 
 were grand, because rational, before gunpowder was 
 invented, are ignoble, because ridiculous, in days 
 of shell and shot. The very idea and possibility 
 of the castle proper have passed away with the 
 arms of the middle ages. A man's house might 
 be defended by his servants against a troop of 
 cavalry, if its doors were solid and its battlements 
 pierced. But it cannot be defended against a couple 
 of field-pieces, whatever the thickness of its oak, or 
 number of its arrow-slits. 
 
 I regret, as much as any one can regret, the 
 loss of castellated architecture properly so called. 
 Nothing can be more noble or interesting than the 
 true thirteenth or fourteenth century castle, when 
 built in a difificult position, its builder taking advan- 
 tage of every inch of ground to gain more room, 
 and of every irregularity of surface for purposes of
 
 i857] EDINBURGH CASTLE. 219 
 
 outlook and defence ; so that the castle sate its 
 rock as a strong rider sits his horse, — fitting its 
 limbs to every writhe of the flint beneath it ; and 
 fringing the mountain promontory far into the sky 
 with the wild crests of its fantastic battlements. 
 Of such castles we can see no more ; and it is 
 just because I know them well and love them deeply 
 that I say so. I know that their power and dignity 
 consists, just as a soldier's consists, in their 
 knowing and doing their work thoroughly; in their 
 being advanced on edge or lifted on peak of crag, 
 not for show nor pride, but for due guard and 
 outlook ; and that all their beautiful irregularities 
 and apparent caprices of form are in reality their 
 fulfilments of need, made beautiful by their com- 
 pelled association with the wild strength and grace 
 of the natural rock. All attempts to imitate them 
 now are useless, — mere girl's play. Mind, I like 
 girl's play, and child's play, in its place, but not in 
 the planning of military buildings. Child's play in 
 many cases is the truest wisdom. I accept to the 
 full the truth of those verses of Wordsworth's* 
 beginning — 
 
 * 'Poems of the Fancy,' xiv. (1803). The quotation omits two lines 
 after the fourth : — 
 
 " Who loved the little rock, and set 
 Upon its head this coronet ? " 
 
 The second stanza then begins, " Was it the humour of a child ? " etc.
 
 2 20 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 " Who fancied what a pretty sight 
 This rock would be, if edged around 
 With hving snowdrops ? — circlet bright ! 
 How glorious to this orchard ground ! 
 Was it the humour of a child ? " etc. 
 
 But I cannot apply the same principles to more 
 serious matters, and vary the reading of the verses 
 into application to the works on Edinburgh Castle, 
 thus : — 
 
 "Who fancied what a pretty sight 
 This rock would be, if edged around 
 With tiny turrets, pierced and light, 
 How glorious to this warlike ground ! " 
 
 Therefore, though I do not know exactly what 
 you have got to do in Edinburgh Castle, what- 
 ever it may be, I am certain the only right way 
 to do it is the plain way. Build what is needed, 
 — chapel, barracks, or dwelling-house, — in the best 
 places, in a military point of view, of dark stone, 
 and bomb-proof, keeping them low, and within the 
 existing line of ramparts. That is the rational thing 
 to do ; and the inhabitants of Edinburgh will find 
 it in the end the picturesque thing. It would be 
 so under any circumstances ; but it is especially so 
 in this instance ; for the grandeur of Edinburgh 
 Castle depends eminently on the great, unbroken, 
 yet beautifully varied parabolic curve in which it 
 descends from the Round Tower on the Castle Hill
 
 1857] EDINBURGH CASTLE. 221 
 
 to the terminating piece of impendent precipice on 
 the north. It is the last grand feature of Edin- 
 burgh left as yet uninjured. You have filled up 
 your valley with a large chimney, a Mound, and 
 an Institution ; broken in upon the Old Town with 
 a Bank, a College, and several fires ; dwarfed the 
 whole of Princes Street by the Scott Monument ; 
 and cut Arthur's Seat in half by the Queen's Drive. 
 It only remains for you to spoil the curve of your 
 Castle, and your illustrations of the artistic principle 
 of breadth will be complete. 
 
 It may appear at first that I depart from the 
 rule of usefulness I have proposed, in entreating 
 for the confinement of all buildings undertaken 
 within the existing ramparts, in order to pr-eserve 
 the contour of the outside rock. But I presume 
 that in the present state of military science, and of 
 European politics, Edinburgh Castle is not a very 
 important military position ; and that to make it a 
 serviceable fortress or citadel, many additional works 
 would be required, seriously interfering with the 
 convenience of the inhabitants of the New Town, 
 and with the arrangements of the Railroad Company, 
 And, as long as these subordinate works are not 
 carried out, I do not see any use in destroying 
 your beautiful rock, merely to bring another gun 
 to bear, or give accommodation to another com-
 
 222 LETTERS ON ART. [1857 
 
 pany. But I both see, and would earnestly 
 endeavour to advocate, the propriety of keeping 
 the architecture of the building within those ram- 
 parts masculine and simple in style, and of not 
 allowing a mistaken conception of picturcsqueness 
 to make a noble fortress look like a child's toy. 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours, 
 
 J. RUSKIN.
 
 i87i] CASTLES AND KENNELS. 223 
 
 From 'The Daily Telegraph,' December 22, 1871. 
 
 CASTLES AND KENNELS. 
 
 To the Editor of ' The Daily Telegraph: 
 
 Sir, — I was astonished the other day by your 
 article on taverns, but never yet in my Hfe was so 
 much astonished by anything in print as by your 
 to-day's article on castles.* 
 
 I am a castle-lover of the truest sort. I do 
 not suppose any man alive has felt anything like 
 the sorrow or anger with which I have watched the 
 modern destruction by railroad and manufacture, 
 helped by the wicked improvidence of our great 
 families, of half the national memorials of England, 
 either actually or in effect and power of association 
 — as Conway, for instance, now vibrating to ruin 
 over a railroad station. For Warwick Castle, I 
 named it in my letter of last October, in " Fors 
 Clavigera,"t as a type of the architectural treasures 
 
 * The article on taverns occurred in the Daily Telegraph of the 8th 
 December, and commented on a recent meeting of the Licensed Victual- 
 lers' Protection Society. There was also a short article upon drunken- 
 ness as a cause of crime in the Daily Telegraph of December 9— referred 
 to by Mr. Ruskin in a letter which will be found in the second volume 
 of this book. The article on castles concluded with an appeal for public 
 subscriptions towards the restoration of Warwick Castle, then recently 
 destroyed by fire. 
 
 t The passage alluded to is partly as follows. "It happened also, 
 which was the real cause of my bias in after-life, that my father had a
 
 224 LETTERS ON ART. [1871 
 
 of this England of ours known to me and beloved 
 from childhood to this hour. 
 
 But, Sir, I am at this hour endeavouring to find 
 work and food for a boy of seventeen, one of eight 
 people — two married couples, a woman and her 
 daughter, and this boy and his sister, — who all 
 sleep together in one room, some 1 8 ft. square, in 
 the heart of London ; and you call upon me for a 
 subscription to help to rebuild Warwick Castle. 
 
 Sir, I am an old and thoroughbred Tory, and as 
 
 such I say, " If a noble family cannot rebuild their 
 
 own castle, in God's name let them live in the 
 
 nearest ditch till they can." 
 
 I am. Sir, your faithful servant, 
 
 • J. RUSKIN. 
 Denmark Hill, Dec. 20. 
 
 real love of pictures. . . . Accordingly, wherever there was a gallery 
 to be seen, we stopped at the nearest town for the night ; and in 
 reverentest manner I thus saw nearly all the noblemen's houses in 
 England ; not indeed myself at that age caring for the pictures, but 
 much for castles and ruins, feeling more and more, as I grew older, 
 the healthy delight of uncovetous admiration, and perceiving, as soon 
 as I could perceive any political truth at all, that it was probably 
 much happier to live in a small house and have Warwick Castle to 
 be astonished at, than to live in Warwick Castle, and have nothing 
 to be astonished at ; and that, at all events, it would not make 
 Brunswick Square in the least more pleasantly habitable to pull 
 Warwick Castle down. And, at this day, though I have kind 
 invitations enough to visit America, I could not, even for a couple 
 of months, live in a country so miserable as to possess no castles." 
 
 1
 
 iSyi] VERONA V. WARWICK. 22$ 
 
 From 'The Daily Telegraph,' December 25, 1871. 
 VERONA V. WARWICK. 
 To the Editor of The Daily Telegraph.^ 
 
 Sir, — Of lodging for poor and rich you will 
 perhaps permit a further word or two from me, 
 even in your close columns for Christmas morning. 
 You think me inconsistent because I wanted to buy 
 Verona, and do not want to restore Warwick.* 
 
 I wanted, and still want, to buy Verona. I would 
 give half my fortune to buy it for England, if any 
 other people would help me. But I would buy it, 
 that what is left of it might not be burned, and 
 what is lost of it not restored. It would indeed 
 be very pleasant — not to me only, but to many 
 other sorrowful persons— if things could be restored 
 when we chose. I would subscribe willingly to 
 restore, for instance, the manger wherein the King 
 of Judah lay cradled this day some years since, 
 and not unwillingly to restore the poorer cradle of 
 our English King-maker, were it possible. But for 
 the making of a new manger, to be exhibited for 
 the edification of the religious British public, I will 
 
 * In a second article upon the same subject the Daily Telegraph 
 had expressed surprise at Mr. Ruskin's former letter. " Who does not 
 remember," it wrote, "his proposal to buy Verona, so as to secure from 
 decay the glorious monuments in it ? " 
 
 15
 
 2 26 LETTERS ON ART. [1871 
 
 not subscribe. No ; nor for the building of mock 
 castles, or mock cathedrals, or mocks of anything. 
 And the sum of what I have to say in this present 
 matter may be put in few words. 
 
 As an antiquary — which, thank Heaven, I am — 
 I say, " Part of Warwick Castle is burnt — 'tis pity. 
 Take better care of the rest." 
 
 As an old Tory — which, thank Heaven, I am — 
 I say, " Lord Warwick's house is burned. Let Lord 
 Warwick build a better if he can, — a worse if he 
 must, — but in any case, let him neither beg nor 
 borrow." • 
 
 As a modern renovator and Liberal — which, thank 
 Heaven, I am not — I would say, " By all means let 
 the public subscribe to build a spick-and-span new 
 Warwick Castle, and let the pictures be touched up, 
 and exhibited by gaslight ; let the family live in the 
 back rooms, and let there be a table d'hote in the 
 great hall at two and six every day, 2s. 6d. a head, 
 and let us have Guy's bowl for a dinner bell." 
 I am. Sir, your faithful servant, 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
 Denmark Hill, S.E., 24^'/^ (for 25//;) December.
 
 iSyi] NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. 2 2/ 
 
 From 'The Daily Telegraph,' January 19, 1S71. 
 
 "NOTRE DAME DE PARIS." 
 
 To the Editor of ' The Daily Telegraph!' 
 
 Sir, — It may perhaps be interesting to some of 
 your readers, in the present posture of affairs round 
 Paris, to know, as far as I am able to tell them, the 
 rank which the Church of Notre Dame holds among 
 architectural and historical monuments. 
 
 Nearly every great church in France has some 
 merit special to itself; in other countries, one style is 
 common to many districts ; in France, nearly every 
 province has its unique and precious monument. 
 
 But of thirteenth-century Gothic — the most perfect 
 architectural style north of the Alps — there is both 
 in historical interest, and in accomplished perfectness 
 of art, one unique monument — the Sainte Chapelle 
 of Paris. 
 
 As examples of Gothic, ranging from the twelfth 
 to the fourteenth century, the cathedrals of Chartres, 
 Rouen, Amiens, Rheims, and Bourges, form a kind 
 of cinque-foil round Notre Dame of Paris, of which 
 it is impossible to say which is the more precious 
 petal ; but any of those leaves would be worth a 
 complete rose of any other country's work except 
 Italy's. Nothing else in art, on the surface of the
 
 2 28 LETTERS ON ART. [1871 
 
 round earth, could represent any one of them, if 
 destroyed, or be named as of any equivalent value. 
 
 Central among these, as in position, so in its 
 school of sculpture ; unequalled in that specialty 
 but by the porch of the north transept of Rouen, 
 and, in a somewhat later school, by the western 
 porches of Bourges ; absolutely unreplaceable as a 
 pure and lovely source of art instruction by any 
 future energy or ingenuity, stands — perhaps, this 
 morning, I ought rather to write, stood — Notre 
 Dame of Paris. 
 
 I am, Sir, your faithful servant, 
 
 J. RUSKTN. 
 
 * This letter, it will be noticed, was written during the bombardment 
 and a few days before the capitulation of Paris in 187 1.
 
 1872] MR. RUSKIN'S influence. 229 
 
 From 'The Pall Mall Gazette,' March 16, 1872. 
 
 MR. RUSKIN'S INFLUENCE : A DEFENCE. 
 
 To the Editor of ' The Pall Mall Gazette: 
 
 Sir, — •! receive many letters just now requesting 
 me to take notice of the new theory respecting 
 Turner's work put forward by Dr. Liebreich in his 
 recent lecture at the Royal Institution.* Will you 
 permit me to observe in your columns, once for all, 
 that I have no time for the contradiction of the 
 various foolish opinions and assertions which from 
 time to time are put forward respecting Turner or 
 his pictures t All that is necessary for any person 
 generally interested in the arts to know about 
 Turner was clearly stated in " Modern Painters " 
 twenty years ago, and I do not mean to state it 
 again, nor to contradict any contradictions of it. 
 Dr. Liebreich is an ingenious and zealous scientific 
 person. The public may derive much benefit from 
 consulting him on the subject of spectacles — not 
 on that of art. 
 
 * On Friday, March 8, 1872, entitled 'Turner and Mulready— On 
 the Effect of certain Faults of Vision on Painting, with especial refer- 
 ence to their Works.' The argument of the lecturer, and distinguished 
 oculist, was that the change of style in the pictures of Turner was due 
 to a change in his eyes which developed itself during the last twenty 
 years of his life. (See ' Proceedings of the Royal Institution,' 1872, 
 vol. vi., p. 450.)
 
 2 so LETTERS ON ART. [1872 
 
 As I am under the necessity of writing to you 
 at any rate, may I say further that I wish your 
 critic of Mr. Eastlake's book* on the Gothic revival 
 would explain what he means by saying that my 
 direct influence on architecture is always wrong, 
 and my indirect influence right ; because, if that 
 be so, I will try to exercise only indirect influ- 
 ence on my Oxford pupils. But the fact to my 
 own notion is otherwise. I am proud enough to 
 hope, for instance, that I have had some direct 
 influence on Mr. Street ; and I do not doubt but 
 
 * ' A History of the Gothic Revival.' By Charles L. Eastlake, 
 F.R.I.B.A. London, Longman and Co., 1872. — In this work Mr. 
 Eastlake had estimated very highly Mr. Ruskin's influence on modern 
 architecture, whilst his reviewer was " disposed to say that Mr. Ruskin's 
 direct and immediate influences had almost always been in the wrong ; 
 and his more indirect influences as often in the right." It is upon these 
 words that Mr. Ruskin comments here, and to thi» comment the critic 
 replied in a letter which appeared in the Fall Mall Gazette of the 20th 
 inst. The main portion of his reply was as follows: "The direct 
 influences, then, which I had principally in my mind were those which 
 had resulted in a preference for Venetian over English Gothic, in the 
 underrating of expressional character in architecture, and the overrating 
 of sculptured ornament, especially of a naturalistic and imitative cha- 
 racter, and more generally in an exclusiveness which limited the due 
 influence of some, as I think, noble styles of architecture. By the 
 indirect influences I meant the habit of looking at questions of archi- 
 tectural art in the light of imaginative ideas ; the recognition of the vital 
 importance of such questions even in their least important details ; and 
 generally an enthusiasm and activity which could have resulted from 
 no less- a force than Mr. Ruskin's wondrously suggestive genius." 
 To this explanation Mr. Ruskin replied in his second letter on the 
 subject.
 
 i872] MR. RUSKIN'S INFLUENCE. 2 3 I 
 
 that the public will have more satisfaction from 
 his Law Courts* than they have had from anything 
 built within fifty years. But I have had indirect 
 influence on nearly every cheap villa-builder between 
 this t and Bromley ; and there is scarcely a public- 
 house near the Crystal Palace but sells its gin and 
 bitters under pseudo-Venetian capitals copied from 
 the Church of the Madonna of Health or of Miracles. 
 And one of my principal notions for leaving my 
 present house is that it is surrounded everywhere by 
 the accursed Frankenstein monsters of, zV^directly, 
 my own making. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
 March 15. 
 
 * Mr. Street's design for the New Law Courts was, after much dis- 
 cussion, selected, May 30, 1868, and approved by commission, August, 
 1870. The building was not, however, begun till February, 1874, and 
 the hope expressed in this letter is therefore, unfortunately, no expres- 
 sion of opinion on the work itself. 
 
 f Denmark Hill.
 
 232 LETTERS ON ART, [1872 
 
 From 'The Pall Mall Gazette,' March 21, 1872. 
 
 MR. RUSKIN'S INFLUENCE: A REJOINDER. 
 
 To the Editor of ' The Pall Mall Gazette: 
 
 Sir, — I am obliged by your critic's reply to my 
 question, but beg to observe that, meaning what he 
 explains himself to have meant, he should simply 
 have said that my influence on temper was right, 
 and on taste wrong ; the influence being in both 
 cases equally ' direct.' On questions of taste I will 
 not venture into discussion with him, but must be 
 permitted to correct his statement that I have 
 persuaded any one to prefer Venetian to English 
 Gothic. I have stated that Italian — chiefly Pisan 
 and Florentine — Gothic is the noblest school of 
 Gothic hitherto existent, which is true ; and that 
 one form of Venetian Gothic deserves singular 
 respect for the manner of its development. I 
 gave the mouldings and shaft measurements of 
 that form,* and to so little purpose, that I chal- 
 lenge your critic to find in London, or within 
 twenty miles of it, a single Venetian casement 
 built on the sections which I gave as normal. 
 
 * See 'Arabian Windows in the Campo Santa Maria, Mater Domini, 
 Plate ii. of the ' Examples of the Architecture of Venice, ' selected and 
 drawn to measurement from the edifice, 185 1. And see, too, 'Stones of 
 Venice,' vol. ii., chap, vii., Gothic Palaces. 
 
 1
 
 1872] MR. RUSKIN'S influence. 233 
 
 For Venetian architecture developed out of British 
 moral consciousness I decline to be answerable. 
 His accusation that I induced architects to study 
 sculpture more, and what he is pleased to call 
 " expressional character " less, I admit. I should 
 be glad if he would tell me what, before my 
 baneful influence began to be felt, the expres- 
 sional character of our building was ; and I will 
 reconsider my principles if he can point out to me, 
 on any modern building either in London or, as 
 aforesaid, within twenty miles round, a single piece 
 of good sculpture of which the architect repents, or 
 the public complains. 
 
 I am, Sir, your faithful servant, 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
 March 21.
 
 2 34 LETTERS ON ART. [1877 
 
 From 'The Liverpool Daily Post,' June 9, 1877. 
 
 MODERN RESTORATION.* 
 
 Venice, i^th April, iZjj. 
 My dear Sir, — It is impossible for any one to 
 know the horror and contempt with which I regard 
 modern restoration — but it is so great that it simply 
 paralyzes me in despair, — and in the sense of such 
 difference in all thought and feeling between me 
 and the people I live in the midst of, almost makes 
 it useless for me to talk to them. Of course all 
 restoration is accursed architect's jobbery, and will 
 go on as long as they can get their filthy bread 
 by such business. But things are worse here than 
 in England : you have little there left to lose — 
 here, every hour is ruining buildings of inestimable 
 beauty and historical value — simply to keep st'one- 
 lawyerst at work. I am obliged to hide my face 
 from it all, and work at other things, or I should 
 die of mere indignation and disgust. 
 
 Ever truly yours, 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
 * This letter was originally received by ' a Liverpool gentleman,' 
 and sent enclosed in a long letter signed 'An Antiquarian,' to the 
 Liverpool Daily Post. 
 
 t An obvious misprint for ' stone-layers.'
 
 i877] RIBBESFORD CHURCH. 235 
 
 From 'The Kidderminster Times,' July 28, 1877. 
 
 RIBBESFORD CHURCH. 
 
 To the Editor of'' The Kidder nwistei- Times. ^ 
 
 Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, 
 July 24, 1877. 
 
 Sir, — It chanced that, on the morning of the 
 Sunday, when the appearances of danger in the 
 walls of Ribbesford Church began seriously to 
 manifest themselves (according to the report in 
 your columns of the 21st inst.),* I was standing 
 outside of the church, listening to the singing of the 
 last hymn as the sound came through the open door 
 (with the Archer Knight sculptured above it), and 
 showing to the friend who had brought me to the 
 lovely place the extreme interest of the old perpen- 
 dicular traceries in the freehand working of the 
 apertures. 
 
 Permit me to say, with reference to the proposed 
 restoration of the church, that no modern architect, 
 no mason either, can, or would if they could, " copy " 
 those traceries. They will assuredly put up with 
 
 * Ribbesford Church was finally closed after the morning service on 
 Sunday, July 15, 1S77. It was then restored, and was reopened and 
 reconsecrated on June 15, 1879. The A'idderminster Times oi the 2i^t 
 inst. contained an account of a meeting of the Ribbesford parishioners 
 to consider the restoration of the church. Hence the allusions in this 
 letter to " copying " the traceries.
 
 236 LETTERS ON ART. [1877 
 
 geometrical models in their place, which will be no 
 more like the old traceries than a Kensington paper 
 pattern is like a living flower. Whatever else is 
 added or removed, those traceries should be replaced 
 as they are, and left in reverence until they moulder 
 away. If they are already too much decayed to hold 
 the glass safely (which I do not believe), any frame- 
 work which may be necessary can be arranged to 
 hold the casements within them, leaving their bars 
 entirely disengaged, and merely kept from falling by 
 iron supports. But if these are to be " copied," why 
 in the world cannot the congregation pay for a new 
 and original church, to display the genius and wealth 
 of the nineteenth century somewhere else, and leave 
 the dear old ruin to grow gray by Severn side 
 in peace .'' 
 
 I am, Sir, your faithful servant, 
 
 J. RUSKIN.
 
 i879] ST. mark's, VENICE. 237 
 
 CIRCULAR* RESPECTING MEMORIAL STUDIES OF 
 ST. MARK'S, VENICE, NOW IN PROGRESS UNDER 
 MR. RUSKIN'S DIRECTION. 
 
 This circular will be given to visitors to the Ola Water-colour Society's 
 Exhibition, Pall Mall East, or on application to the Fine Art Society 
 148, Neiu Bond Street. 
 
 My friends have expressed much surprise at my 
 absence from the pubHc meetings called in defence 
 of St. Mark's. They cannot, however, be too clearly 
 certified that I am now entirely unable to take part 
 in exciting business, or even, without grave danger, 
 to allow my mind to dwell on the subjects which, 
 having once been dearest to it, are now the sources 
 of acutest pain. The illness which all but killed 
 me two years agof was not brought on by over- 
 work, but by grief at the course of public affairs 
 in England, and of affairs, public and private alike, 
 m Venice ; the distress of many an old and deeply 
 regarded friend there among the humbler classes of 
 the city being as necessary a consequence of the 
 modern system of centralization, as the destruction 
 of her ancient civil and religious buildings. 
 
 * This circular, which was distributed as above noted during the 
 winter of 1879-80, is here reprinted by Mr. Ruskin's permission, in 
 connection with the preceding letters upon restoration in architecture. 
 See the Notes on Prout and Hunt, 1879-80, p. 71. 
 
 f In February, 1878; see the 'Turner Notes' of that year, and 
 ' Fors Clavigera,' New Series — Letter the Fourth, March, 1880.
 
 238 LETTERS ON ART. [1879 
 
 How far forces of this national momentum may 
 be arrested by protest, or mollified by petition, I 
 know not ; what in either kind I have felt myself 
 able to do has been done two years since, in 
 conjunction with one of the few remaining repre- 
 sentatives of the old Venetian noblesse.* All that 
 now remains for me is to use what time may be yet 
 granted for such record as hand and heart can make 
 of the most precious building in Europe, standing 
 yet in the eyes of men and the sunshine of heaven. 
 
 The drawing of the first two arches of the west 
 front, now under threat of restoration, which, as an 
 honorary member of the Old Water-colour Society, 
 I have the privilege of exhibiting in its rooms this 
 year, shows with sufficient accuracy the actual state 
 of the building, and the peculiar qualities of its 
 architecture.! The principles of that architecture 
 are analyzed at length in the second volume of the 
 ' Stones of Venice,' and the whole facjade described 
 there with the best care I could, in hope of directing 
 the attention of English architects to the forms of 
 Greek sculpture which enrich itf The words have 
 
 * Count Alvise Piero Zorzi, the author of an admirable and authori- 
 tative essay on the restoration of St. Mark's (Venice, 1877). 
 
 f This drawing (No. 28 in the Exhibition) was of a small portion 
 of the west front. 
 
 + ' Stones of Venice,' vol. ii., chapter 4, of original edition, and 
 vol. i., chapter 4, o tUe smaller edition for the use of travellers.
 
 1879] ST. mark's, VENICE. 239 
 
 been occasionally read for the sound of them ; and 
 perhaps, when the building is destroyed, may be 
 some day, with amazement, perceived to have been 
 true. 
 
 In the meantime, the drawing just referred to, 
 every touch of it made from the building, and 
 left as the colour dried in the spring mornings of 
 1877, will make clear some of the points chiefly 
 insisted on in the ' Stones of Venice,' and which are of 
 yet more importance now.* Of these, the first and 
 main ones are the exquisite delicacy of the work 
 and perfection of its preservation to this time. It 
 seems to me that the English visitor never realizes 
 thoroughly what it is that he looks at in the St. 
 Mark's porches : its glittering confusion in a style 
 unexampled, its bright colours, its mingled marbles, 
 produce on him no real impression of age, and its 
 diminutive size scarcely any of grandeur. It looks 
 to him almost like a stage scene, got up solidly for 
 some sudden festa. No mere guide-book's passing 
 assertion of date — this century or the other — can in 
 the least make him even conceive, and far less feel, 
 that he is actually standing before the very shafts 
 
 * In the first edition of this circular this sentence ran as follows : — 
 *' In the meantime, with the aid of the drawing just referred to, every 
 touch of it from the building, and left, as the colour dried in the morn- 
 ing light of the loth May, 1877, some of the points chiefly insisted on 
 in the ' Stones of Venice,' are of importance now."
 
 240 LETTERS ON ART. [1879 
 
 and stones that were set on their foundations here 
 while Harold the Saxon stood by the grave of the 
 Confessor under the fresh-raised vaults of the first 
 Norman Westminster Abbey, of which now a single 
 arch only remains standing. He cannot, by any 
 effort, imagine that those exquisite and lace-like 
 sculptures of twined acanthus, — every leaf-edge as 
 sharp and fine as if they were green weeds fresh 
 springing in the dew, by the Pan-droseion,* — were, 
 indeed, cut and finished to their perfect grace while 
 the Norman axes were hewing out rough zigzags 
 and dentils round the aisles of Durham and Lin- 
 disfarne. Or nearer, in what is left of our own 
 Canterbury— -it is but an hour's journey in pleasant 
 Kent — you may compare, almost as if you looked 
 from one to the other, the grim grotesque of the 
 block capitals in the crypt with the foliage of these 
 flexile ones, and with their marble doves — scarcely 
 distinguishable from the living birds that nestle 
 between them. Or, going down two centuries (for the 
 fillings of the portico arches were not completed till 
 after 1204), what thirteenth-century work among our 
 grey limestone walls can be thought of as wrought 
 in the same hour with that wreath of intertwined 
 white marble, relieved by gold, of which the tenderest 
 and sharpest lines of the pencil cannot finely enough 
 
 * Printed ' Pan-choreion ' in the first edition.
 
 1879] ST. mark's, VENICE. 24 1 
 
 express the surfaces and undulations.? For indeed, 
 without and within, St. Mark's is not, in the real 
 nature of it, a piece of architecture, but a jewelled 
 casket and painted reliquary, chief of the treasures 
 in what were once the world's treasuries of sacred 
 things, the kingdoms of Christendom. 
 
 A jewelled casket, every jewel of which was itself 
 sacred. Not a slab of it, nor a shaft, but has been 
 brought from the churches descendants of the great 
 Seven of Asia, or from the Christian- Greek of Corinth, 
 Crete, and Thrace, or the Christian- Israelite in 
 Palestine — the central archivolt copied from that of 
 the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the opposing 
 lions or phoenixes of its sculptures from the treasury 
 of Atreus and the citadel of Tyre. 
 
 Thus, beyond all measure of value as a treasury 
 of art, it is also, beyond all other volumes, venerable 
 as a codex of religion. Just as the white foliage 
 and birds on their golden ground are descendants, 
 in direct line, from the ivory and gold of Phidias, 
 so the Greek pictures and inscriptions, whether 
 in mosaic or sculpture, throughout the building, 
 record the unbroken unity of spiritual influence 
 from the Father of light — or the races whose 
 own poets had said 'We also are his offspring' — 
 down to the day when all their gods, not slain, 
 but changed into new creatures, became the types 
 
 16
 
 242 LETTERS ON ART. [1879 
 
 to them of the mightier Christian spirits ; and 
 Perseus became St. George, and Mars St. Michael, 
 and Athena the Madonna, and Zeus their revealed 
 Father in Heaven. 
 
 In all the history of human mind, there is nothing 
 so wonderful, nothing so eventful, as this spiritual 
 change. So inextricably is it interwoven with the 
 most divine, the most distant threads of human 
 thought and effort, that while none of the thoughts 
 of St. Paul or the visions of St. John can be under- 
 stood without our understanding first the imagery 
 familiar to the Pagan worship of the Greeks ; on 
 the other hand, no understanding of the real pur- 
 port of Greek religion can be securely reached 
 without watching the translation of its myths into 
 the message of Christianity. 
 
 Both by the natural temper of my mind, and by 
 the labour of forty years given to this subject in its 
 practical issues on the present state ' of Christendom, 
 I have become, in some measure, able both to show 
 and to interpret these most precious sculptures ; and 
 my health has been so far given back to me that 
 if I am at this moment aided, it will, so far as I can 
 
 * For " state," the first edition reads " mind," and for " have become, 
 in some measure, able," it has "have qualified myself." So again 
 for "am at this moment aided," it reads "am asked, and enabled to 
 do so."
 
 1879] ST. mark's, VENICE. 243 
 
 judge, be easily possible for me to complete the 
 work so long in preparation. There will yet, I doubt 
 not, be time to obtain perfect record of all that is 
 to be destroyed. I have entirely honest and able 
 draughtsmen at my command; my own resignation* 
 of my Oxford Professorship has given me leisure ; 
 and all that I want from the antiquarian sympathy 
 of England is so much instant help as may permit 
 me, while yet in available vigour of body and mind, 
 to get the records made under my own overseership, 
 and registered for sufficient and true. The casts 
 and drawings which I mean to have made will be 
 preserved in a consistent series in my Museum at 
 Sheffield, where I have freehold ground enough to 
 build a perfectly lighted gallery for their reception. 
 I have used the words ' I want,' as if praying this 
 thing for myself. It is not so. If only some other 
 person could and would undertake all this, Heaven 
 knows how gladly I would leave the task to him. 
 But there is no one else at present able to do it : 
 if not now by me, it can never be done more. And 
 so I leave it to the reader's grace. 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
 All subscriptions to be sent to Mr. G. Allen, 
 Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent. 
 
 * Early in 1879.
 
 2 44 LETTERS ON ART. [1879 
 
 POSTSCRIPT* 
 
 By the kindness of the Society of Painters in Water- 
 colours I am permitted this year, in view of the crisis 
 of the fate of the fagade of St. Mark's, to place in the 
 Exhibition-room of the Society ten photographs, illustrative 
 of its past and present state. I have already made use of 
 them, both in my lectures at Oxford and in the parts of 
 Fors Clavigera intended for Art-teaching at my Sheffield 
 Museum ; and all but the eighth are obtainable from my 
 assistant, Mr. Ward (2, Church Terrace, Richmond), who 
 is my general agent for photographs, either taken under 
 my direction (as here, Nos. 4, 9, and 10), or specially 
 chosen by me for purposes of Art Education. The series 
 of views here shown are all perfectly taken, with great 
 clearness, from the most important points, and give, con- 
 secutively, complete evidence respecting the fagade. 
 
 They are arranged in the following order: — 
 
 1. The Central Porch. \ . , . 
 
 Arranged in one 
 
 2. The Two Northern Porches. / 
 
 frame. 
 
 3. The Two Southern Porches. ) 
 
 4. The Northern Portico. 
 
 5. The Southern Portico. Before restoration. 
 
 6. The West Front, in Perspective. Seen from 
 
 the North. 
 
 7. The West Front, in Perspective. Seen from 
 
 the South. 
 
 8. The South Side. Before restoration. 
 
 9. Detail of Central Archivolt. 
 
 10. The Cross of the Merchants of Venice. 
 This last photograph is not of St. Mark's, but is of the 
 inscription which I discovered, in 1877, on the Church of 
 * Printed in the second edition only.
 
 1 879] ST. mark's, VENICE. 245 
 
 St. James of the Rialto. It is of the 9th or loth century 
 (according to the best antiquarians in Venice), and is given 
 in this series, first, to confirm the closing paragraph in my 
 notes on the Prout drawings in Bond Street;* and secondly, 
 to show the perfect preservation even of the hair- strokes 
 in letters carved in the Istrian marble used at Venice a 
 thousand years ago. The inscription on the cross is, — 
 ' Sit crux vera salus huic tua Christe loco.' 
 (Be Thy Cross, O Christ, the true safety of this place. ) 
 
 And on the band beneath, — 
 
 ' Hoc circa templum sit jus mercantibus sequum, 
 Pondera nee vergant nee sit conventio prava.' 
 (Around this temple let the merchants' law be just, 
 Their weights tme, and their contracts fair.) 
 
 The bearing of this inscription on the relations of Antonio 
 to Shylock may perhaps not be perceived by a public which 
 now — consistently and naturally enough, but ominously — 
 considers Shylock a victim to the support of the principles 
 
 * The reference is to the closing paragraph of the Preface to the 
 Notes, which runs as follows: — "Athena, observe, of the Agora, 
 or Market Place. And St. James of the Deep Stream or Market 
 River. The Angels of Honest Sale and Honest Porterage; such 
 honest porterage being the grandeur of the Grand Canal, and of all 
 other canals, rivers, sounds, and seas that ever moved in wavering 
 morris under the night. And the eternally electric light of the 
 embankment of that Rialto stream was shed upon it by the Cross : — 
 know you that for certain, you dwellers by high-embanked and 
 steamer-burdened Thames. And learn from your poor wandering 
 painter this lesson— for the sum of the best he had to give you (it is 
 the Alpha of the Laws of tnie human life) — that no city is prosperous 
 in the sight of heaven, unless the peasant sells in its market — adding 
 this lesson of Gentile Bellini's for the Omega, that no city is ever 
 righteous in the Sight of Heaven unless the Noble walks in its street." 
 (Notes on Prout and Hunt, p. 44. )
 
 246 LETTERS ON ART. [1879 
 
 of legitimate trade, and Antonio a 'speculator and senti- 
 mentalist.' From the series of photographs of St. Mark's 
 itself, I cannot but think even the least attentive observer 
 must receive one strong impression — that of the singular 
 preservation of the minutest details in its sculpture. Ob- 
 serve, this is a quite separate question from the stability 
 of the fabric. In our northern cathedrals the stone, for 
 the most part, moulders away ; and the restorer usually 
 replaces it by fresh sculpture, on the faces of walls of which 
 the mass is perfectly secure. Here, at St. Mark's, on the 
 contrary, the only possible pretence for restoration has 
 been, and is, the alleged insecurity of the masses of inner 
 wall — the external sculptures remaining in faultless perfec- 
 tion, so far as unaffected by direct human violence. Both 
 the Greek and Istrian marbles used at Venice are abso- 
 lutely defiant of hypgethral influences, and the edges of 
 their delicatest sculpture remain to this day more sharp 
 than if they had been cut in steel — for then they would 
 have rusted away. It is especially for example of this 
 quality that I have painted the ornament of the St. Jean 
 d'Acre pillars, No. 107, which the reader may at once 
 compare with the daguerreotype (No. 108) beside it, which 
 are exhibited, with the Prout and Hunt drawings, at the 
 Fine Art Society's rooms.* These pillars are known to 
 be not later than the sixth century, yet wherever external 
 violence has spared their decoration it is as sharp as a 
 fresh-growing thistle. Throughout the whole fagade of St. 
 Mark's, the capitals have only here and there by casualty 
 lost so much as a volute or an acanthus leaf, and what- 
 ever remains is perfect as on the day' it was set in its place, 
 
 * See the ' Notes on Prout and Hunt,' p. 78.
 
 1879] ST. mark's, VENICE. 247 
 
 mellowed and subdued only in colour by time, but white 
 still, clearly white ; and grey, still softly grey ; its porphyry 
 purple as an Orleans plum, and the serpentine as green 
 as a greengage. Note also, that in this throughout perfect 
 decorated surface there is not a loose joint. The appear- 
 ances of dislocation, which here and there look like yielding 
 of masonry, are merely carelessness in the replacing or 
 resetting of the marble armour at the different times when 
 the front has been retouched — in several cases quite wilful 
 freaks of arrangement. The slope of the porphyry shaft, 
 for instance, on the angle at the left of my drawing, looks 
 like dilapidation. Were it really so, the building would be 
 a heap of ruins in twenty-four hours. These porches sus- 
 tain no weight above, — their pillars carry merely an open 
 gallery ; and the inclination of the red marble pilasters at 
 the angle is not yielding at all, but an originally capricious 
 adjustment of the marble armour. It will be seen that the 
 investing marbles between the arch and pilaster are cut to 
 the intended inclination, which brings the latter nearly into 
 contact with the upper archivolt ; the appearance of actual 
 contact being caused by the projection of the dripstone. 
 There are, indeed, one or two leaning towers in Venice 
 whose foundations have partly yielded ; but if anytJiing were 
 in danger on St. Mark's Place, it would be the campanile 
 — three hundred feet high, — and not the little shafts and 
 galleries within reach — too easy reach — of the gaslighter's 
 ladder. And the only dilapidations I have myself seen 
 on this porch, since I first drew it forty-six years ago, 
 have been, first, those caused by the insertion of the lamps 
 themselves, and then the breaking away of the marble 
 network of the main capital by the habitual clattering of 
 the said gaslighter's ladder against it. A piece of it which
 
 248 LETTERS ON ART. [1879 
 
 I saw so broken off, and made an oration over to the 
 passers-by in no less broken Italian, is in my mineral 
 cabinet at Brantwood. 
 
 Before leaving this subject of the inclined angle, let 
 me note — usefully, though not to my present purpose — 
 that the entire beauty of St. Mark's Campanile depends on 
 this structure, there definitely seen to be one of real safety. 
 This grace and apparent strength of the whole mass would 
 be destroyed if the sides of it were made vertical. In 
 Gothic towers, the same effect is obtained by the retiring 
 of the angle buttresses, without actual inclination of any 
 but the coping lines. 
 
 In the Photograph No. 5 the slope ot the angles in the 
 correspondent portico, as it stood before restoration, is 
 easily visible and measurable, the difference being, even 
 on so small a scale, full the twentieth of an inch between 
 the breadth at base and top, at the angles, while the lines 
 bearing the inner arch are perfectly vertical. 
 
 There was, indeed, as will be seen at a glance, some 
 displacement of the pillars dividing the great window 
 above, immediately to the right of the portico. But these 
 pillars were exactly the part of the south front which carried 
 no weight. The arch above them is burdened only by its 
 own fringes of sculpture ; and the pillars carried only the 
 bit of decorated panelling, which is now bent — not out- 
 wards, as it would have been by pressure, but inwards. 
 The arch has not subsided ; it was always of the same 
 height as the one to the right of it (the Byzantine builders 
 throwing their arches always in whatever lines they chose) ; 
 nor is there a single crack or displacement in the sculpture 
 of the investing fringe. 
 
 In No. 3 (to the right hand in the frame) there is
 
 i879] ST. mark's, VENICE. 249 
 
 dilapidation and danger enough certainly ; but that is 
 wholly caused by the savage and brutal carelessness with 
 which the restored parts are joined to the old. The 
 photograph bears deadly and perpetual witness against the 
 system of * making work,' too well known now among 
 English as well as Italian operatives ; but it bears witness, 
 as deadly, against the alleged accuracy of the restoration 
 itself. The ancient dentils are bold, broad, and cut with 
 the free hand, as all good Greek work is ; the new ones, 
 little more than half their size, are cut with the servile and 
 horrible rigidity of the modern mechanic. 
 
 This quality is what M. Meduna, in the passage quoted 
 rom his defence of himself* in the Standard, has at 
 once the dullness and the audacity actually to boast of as 
 '■plus exacte ' ! 
 
 Imagine a Kensington student set to copy a picture by 
 Velasquez, and substituting a Nottingham lace pattern, 
 traced with absolute exactness, for the painter's sparkle and 
 flow and flame, and boasting of his improvements as 'plus 
 exacte' \ That is precisely what the Italian restorer does 
 for his original ; but, alas ! he has the inestimable privilege 
 also of destroying the original as he works, and putting his 
 student's caricature in its place ! Nor are any words bitter 
 or contemptuous enough to describe the bestial stupidities 
 which have thus already replaced the floor of the church, in 
 my early days the loveliest in Italy, and the most sacred. 
 
 In the Photograph No. 7 there is, and there only, one 
 piece of real dilapidation — the nodding pinnacle propped 
 on the right. Those pinnacles stand over the roof gutters, 
 and their bracket supports are, of course, liable to dis- 
 
 * See the Standard (Dec. 3, 1879). M. Meduna was the architect 
 who carried out the ' ' restoration " of the south facade of the Cathedral.
 
 2 50 LETTERS ON ART. [1879 
 
 placement, if the gutters get choked by frost or otherwise 
 neglected. The pinnacle is not ten feet high, and can be 
 replaced and secured as easily as the cowl on a chimney- 
 pot. The timbers underneath were left there merely to 
 give the wished-for appearance of repairs going on. They 
 defaced the church front through the whole winter of 
 1876. I copied the bills stuck on them one Sunday, and 
 they are printed in the 78th number of Fors Clavigera, 
 the first being the announcement of the Reunited agencies 
 for information on all matters of commercial enterprise 
 and speculation, and the last the announcement of the 
 loss of a cinnamon-coloured little bitch, with rather long 
 ears {colP orecchie piutosto lunghe). I waited through the 
 winter to see how much the Venetians really cared for the 
 look of their church ; but lodged a formal remonstrance in 
 March with one of the more reasonable civic authorities, 
 who presently had them removed. The remonstrance 
 ought, of course, to have come from the clergy ; but they 
 contented themselves with cutting flower-wreaths on paper 
 to hang over the central door at Christmas time. For 
 the rest, the pretence of rottenness in the walls is really 
 too gross to be answered. There are brick buildings in 
 Italy by tens of thousands, Roman, Lombardic, Gothic, 
 on all scales and in all exposures. Which of them has 
 rotted or fallen, but by violence ? Shall the tower of 
 Garisenda stand, and the Campanile of Verona, and the 
 tower of St. Mark's, and, forsooth, this Uttle fifty feet of 
 unweighted wall be rotten and dangerous ? 
 
 Much more I could say, and show ; but the certainty of 
 the ruin of poor Bedlamite Venice is in her own evil will, 
 and not to be averted by any human help or pleading. 
 Her Sahha delle streghe has truly come ; and in her own
 
 1S79] ST. mark's, VENICE. 25 I 
 
 words (see Fors, letter 77th): 'Finalmente la Piazza di 
 S. Marco sara invasa e completamente illuminata dalle 
 Fiamme di Belzebu. Perche il Sabba possa riuscire piu 
 complete, si raccomanda a tutti gli spettatori di fischiare 
 durante le fiamme come anime dannate.' 
 
 Meantime, in what Saturday pause may be before this 
 Witches' Sabbath, if I have, indeed, any English friends, 
 let them now help me, and my fellow-workers, to get such 
 casts, and colourings, and measurings, as may be of use 
 in time to come. I am not used to the begging tone, and 
 will not say more than that what is given me will go in 
 mere daily bread to the workers, and that next year, if I 
 live, there shall be some exposition of what we have got 
 done, with the best account I can render of its parts and 
 pieces. Fragmentary enough they must be — poor fallen 
 plumes of the winged lion's wings, — yet I think I can 
 plume a true shaft or two with them yet. 
 
 Some copies of the second edition of this circular had printed at 
 the top of its last and otherwise blank page the words, ^'Present State 
 of Subscription Lists: — ," a printer's error, mistaken by some readers 
 for a piece of dry humour. 
 
 Subscriptions were collected by Mr. G. Allen, as above intimated, 
 and also by Mr. F. W. Pullen, secretary to the Ruskin Society 
 of Manchester, under the authority of the following letter, which 
 was printed and distributed by him . — ^^Norvember 29, 1879. — Dear 
 Mr. Pullen, — I am very glad to have your most satisfactory letter, and 
 as gladly give you authority to receive subscriptions for drawings 
 and sculptures of St. Mark's. Mr. Bunney's large painting of the 
 whole west fa9ade, ordered by me a year and a half ago, and in steady 
 progress ever since, is to be completed this spring. It was a ;^5oo 
 commission for the Guild, but I don't want to have to pay it with 
 Guild capital. I have the power of getting casts also, in places where 
 nobody else can, and have now energy enough to give directions, but 
 can no more pay for them out of my own pocket. Ever gratefully
 
 252 LETTERS ON ART. [1879 
 
 yours, J. R. — As a formal authority, this had better have my full signa- 
 ture— John RusKiN." — In a further letter to Manchester on the subject, 
 Mr. Ruskin wrote as follows: — "It is wholly impossible for me at 
 present to take any part in the defence — at last, though far too late — 
 undertaken by the true artists and scholars of England — of the most 
 precious Christian building in Europe; . . . nor is there any occasion 
 that I should, if only those who care for me will refer to what I have 
 already written, and will accept from me the full ratification of all that 
 was said by the various speakers, all without exception men of the most 
 accurate judgment and true feeling, at the meeting held in Oxford, All 
 that I think it necessary for you to lay, directly from myself, before the 
 meeting you are about to hold, is the explicit statement of two 
 facts of which I am more distinctly cognizant from my long residences 
 in Italy at different periods, and in Venice during these last years, 
 than any other person can be : — namely, the Infidel — (malignantly and 
 scornfully Infidel and anti-religionist) aim of Italian ' restoration ' — and 
 the totality of the destruction it involves, of whatever it touches." So 
 again, in a second and despairing letter, he wrote, "You cannot be too 
 strongly assured of the total destruction involved, in the restoration 
 of St. Mark's. . . . Then the plague of it all is, What can you do ? 
 Nothing would be effectual, but the appointment of a Procurator of 
 St. Mark's, with an enormous salary, dependent on the Church's being 
 let alone. What you can do by a meeting at Manchester, I have no 
 notion. The only really practical thing that I can think of would be 
 sending me lots of money to spend in getting all the drawings I can 
 of the old thing before it goes. I don't believe we can save it by any 
 protests." — See the Bmningham Daily Mail, Nov. 27, 1879. — The 
 reader is also referred to ' Fors Clavigera, ' New Series, Letter the 
 Fourth, pp. 125-6. 
 
 The meeting in Oxford alluded to above was held in the Sheldonian 
 Theatre on November 15, 1879. Amongst the principal speakers 
 were the Dean of Christ Church (in the chair). Dr. Acland, the 
 Professor of Fine Art (Mr. W. B, Richmond), Mr. Street, Mr. William 
 Morris, and Mr. Burne Jones.
 
 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. 
 
 I. 
 
 GEOLOGICAL. 
 
 THE CONFORMATION OF THE ALPS. 1S64. 
 
 CONCERNING GLACIERS. 1864. 
 
 ENGLISH VERSUS ALPINE GEOLOGY. 1864. 
 
 CONCERNING HYDROSTATICS. 1S64. 
 
 JAMES DAVID FORBES : HIS REAL GREATNESS. 1874. 
 
 II 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 ON REFLECTIONS IN WATER. 1844. 
 
 ON THE REFLECTION OF RAINBOWS. 1861. 
 
 A LANDSLIP NEAR GIAGNANO. 1841. 
 
 ON THE GENTIAN. 1857. 
 
 ON THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY, (Undated. )
 
 I 
 
 GEOLOGICAL. 
 
 From 'The Reader,' November 12, 1864. 
 
 THE CONFORMATION OF THE ALPS. 
 
 Denmark Hill, \oth November, 1864. 
 My attention has but now been directed to the 
 letters in your October numbers on the subject of 
 the forms of the Alps.* I have, perhaps, some claim 
 to be heard on this question, having spent, out of a 
 somewhat busy life, eleven summers and two winters 
 (the winter work being especially useful, owing to 
 the definition of inaccessible ledges of strata by new- 
 fallen snow) in researches among the Alps, directed 
 solely to the questions of their external form and 
 its mechanical causes ; while I left to other geolo- 
 gists the more disputable and difficult problems of 
 relative ages of beds. 
 
 * The Reader- of October 15 contained an article 'On the Con- 
 formation of the Alps,' to which in the following issue of the journal 
 (October 22) Sir Roderick Murchison replied in a letter dated 
 "Torquay, i6th October," and entitled 'On the Excavation of Lake- 
 Basins in solid rocks by Glaciers, ' the possibility of which he altogether 
 denied.
 
 256 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1864 
 
 I say " more disputable " because, however com- 
 plex the phases of mechanical action, its general 
 nature admits, among the Alps, of no question. 
 The forms of the Alps are quite visibly owing 
 to the action (how gradual or prolonged cannot 
 yet be determined) of elevatory, contractile, and 
 expansive forces, followed by that of currents of 
 water at various temperatures, and of prolonged 
 disintegration — ice having had small share in 
 modifying even the higher ridges, and none in 
 causing or forming the valleys. 
 
 The reason of the extreme difficulty in tracing 
 the combination of these several operative causes 
 in any given instance, is that the effective and 
 destructive drainage by no means follows the lead- 
 ing fissures, but tells fearfully on the softer rocks, 
 sweeping away inconceivable volumes of these, while 
 fissures or faults in the harder rocks of quite primal 
 structural importance may be little deepened or 
 widened, often even unindicated, by subsequent 
 aqueous action. I have, however, described at 
 some length the commonest structural and sculp- 
 tural phenomena in the fourth volume of " Modern 
 Painters," and I gave a general sketch of the subject 
 last year in my lecture * at the Royal Institution 
 
 * 'On the Forms of the Stratified Alps of Savoy' — delivered on 
 June 5, 1863. The subject was treated under three heads. I. The
 
 1864] THE CONFORMATION OF THE ALPS. 257 
 
 (fully reported in the Journal de Geneve of 2nd Sep- 
 tember, 1863), but I have not yet thrown together 
 the mass of material in my possession, because 
 our leading chemists are only now on the point 
 of obtaining some data for the analysis of the 
 most important of all forces — that of the consolida- 
 tion and crystallization of the metamorphic rocks, 
 causing them to alter their bulk and exercise irre- 
 sistible and irregular pressures on neighbouring or 
 incumbent beds. 
 
 But, even on existing data, the idea of the exca- 
 vation of valleys by ice has become one of quite 
 ludicrous untenableness. At this moment, the prin- 
 cipal glacier in Chamouni pours itself down a slope 
 of twenty degrees or more over a rock two thousand 
 feet in vertical height ; and just at the bottom of 
 this ice-cataract, where a water-cataract of equal 
 power would have excavated an almost fathomless 
 pool, the ice simply accumulates a heap of stones, 
 on the top of which it rests. 
 
 The lakes of any hill country lie in what are 
 the isolated lowest (as its summits are the isolated 
 highest) portions of its broken surface, and ice no 
 more engraves the one than it builds the other. 
 
 material of the Savoy Alps. 2. The mode of their formation. 3. The 
 mode of their subsequent sculpture. (See the report of the lecture in 
 the 'Proceedings of the Royal Institution,' 1863, vol. iv., p. 142. It 
 was also printed by the Institution in a separate form, p. 4.) 
 VOL. L 17
 
 258 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1864 
 
 But how these hollows were indeed first dug, we 
 know as yet no more than how the Atlantic was 
 dug ; and the hasty expression by geologists of 
 their fancies in such matters cannot be too much 
 deprecated, because it deprives their science of the 
 respect really due to it in the minds of a large 
 portion of the public, who know, and can know, 
 nothing of its established principles, while they can 
 easily detect its speculative vanity. There is plenty 
 of work for us all to do, without losing time in 
 speculation ; and when we have got good sections 
 across the entire chain of the Alps, at intervals of 
 twenty miles apart, from Nice to Innspruch, and 
 exhaustive maps and sections of the lake-basins of 
 Lucerne, Annecy, Como, and Garda, we shall have 
 won the leisure, and may assume the right, to try 
 our wits on the formative question. 
 
 J. RUSKIN.* 
 
 * In reply to this letter, the Reader of November 19, 1864, pub- 
 lished one from a Scottish correspondent, signed "Tain Caimbeul," 
 the writer of which declared that, whilst he looked on Mr. Ruskin 
 "as a thoroughly reliable guide in all that relates to the external 
 aspects of the Alps," he could not "accept his leadership in questions 
 of political economy or the mechanics of glacier motion." 
 
 4
 
 1864] CONCERNING GLACIERS. 259 
 
 From 'The Reader,' November, 26, 1864. 
 
 CONCERNING GLACIERS. 
 
 Denmark Hiia., November 21. 
 
 I am obliged to your Scottish correspondent for 
 the courtesy with which he expresses himself towards 
 me ; and, as his letter refers to several points still 
 (to my no little surprise) in dispute among geolo- 
 gists, you will perhaps allow me to occupy, in reply, 
 somewhat more of your valuable space than I had 
 intended to ask for. 
 
 I say " to my no little surprise," because the great 
 principles of glacial action have been so clearly 
 stated by their discoverer, Forbes, and its minor 
 phenomena (though in an envious temper, which, 
 by its bitterness, as a pillar of salt, has become the 
 sorrowful monument of the discovery it denies)* so 
 carefully described by Agassiz, that I never thought 
 there would be occasion for much talk on the subject 
 henceforward. As much as seems now necessary to 
 be said I will say as briefly as I can. 
 
 What a river carries fast at the bottom of it, a 
 glacier carries slowly at the top of it. This is the 
 main distinction between their agencies. A piece 
 of rock which, falling into a strong torrent, would 
 
 * See below, 'Forbes: his real greatness,' pp. 277 seqq., and the 
 references given in the notes there.
 
 2 6o LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1864 
 
 be perhaps swept down half a mile in twenty 
 minutes, delivering blows on the rocks at the bottom 
 audible like distant heavy cannon,* and at last 
 dashed into fragments, which in a little while will 
 be rounded pebbles (having done enough damage 
 to everything it has touched in its course,) — this 
 same rock, I say, falling on a glacier, lies on the 
 top of it, and is thereon carried down, if at fullest 
 speed, at the rate of three yards in a week, doing, 
 usually, damage to nothing at all. That is the 
 primal difference between the work of water and 
 ice ; these further differences, however, follow from 
 this first one. 
 
 Though a glacier never rolls its moraine into 
 pebbles, as a torrent does its shingle, it torments 
 and teases the said moraine very sufficiently, and 
 without intermission. It is always moving it on, 
 and melting from under it, and one stone is always 
 toppling, or tilting, or sliding over another, and 
 one company of stones crashing over another, with 
 staggering shift of heap behind. Now, leaving out of 
 all account the pulverulent effect of original precipi- 
 tation to glacier level from two or three thousand 
 feet above, let the reader imagine a mass of sharp 
 
 * Even in lower Apennine, ' Dat sonitum saxis, et torto 
 vertice torrens.'t 
 
 t Virgil, ^neid, vii. 567. 
 
 I
 
 1864] CONCERNING GLACIERS. 26 1 
 
 granite road-metal and paving-stones, mixed up with 
 boulders of any size he can think of, and with 
 wreck of softer rocks, (micaceous schists in quantities, 
 usually,) the whole, say, half a quarter of a mile 
 wide, and of variable thickness, from mere skin- 
 deep mock-moraine on mounds of unsuspected ice — 
 treacherous, shadow-begotten — to a railroad embank- 
 ment, passeu^er-emhankment, one eternal collapse of 
 unconditional ruin, rotten to its heart with frost and 
 thaw, (in regions on the edge of each,) and withering 
 sun and waste of oozing ice ; fancy all this heaved 
 and shovelled, slowly, by a gang of a thousand Irish 
 labourers, twenty miles downhill. You will con- 
 jecture there may be some dust developed on the 
 way ? — some at the hill bottom .'' Yet thus you will 
 have but a dim idea of the daily and final results 
 of the movements of glacier moraines, — beautiful 
 result in granite and slate dust, delivered by the 
 torrent at last in banks of black and white slime, 
 recovering itself, far away, into fruitful fields, and 
 level floor for human life. 
 
 Now all this is utterly independent of any action 
 whatsoever by the ice on its sustaining rocks. It 
 kas an action on these indeed ; but of this limited 
 nature as compared with that of water. A stone 
 at the bottom of a stream, or deep-sea current, 
 necessarily and always presses on the bottom with
 
 2 62 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1864 
 
 the weight of the column of water above it — plus 
 the excess of its own weight above that of a bulk 
 of water equal to its own ; but a stone under a 
 glacier may be hitched or suspended in the ice itself 
 for long spaces, not touching bottom at all. When 
 dropped at last, the weight of ice may not come 
 upon it for years, for that weight is only carried on 
 certain spaces of the rock bed ; and in those very 
 spaces the utmost a stone can do is to press on 
 the bottom with the force necessary to drive the 
 given stone into ice of a given density (usually 
 porous) ; and, with this maximum pressure, to move 
 at the maximum rate of about a third of an inch 
 in a quarter of an hour ! Try to saw a piece of 
 marble through (with edge of iron, not of soppy ice, 
 for saw, and with sharp flint sand for felspar slime), 
 and move your saw at the rate of an inch in three- 
 quarters of an hour, and see what lively and pro- 
 gressive work you will make of it ! 
 
 I say " a piece of marble ; " but your permanent 
 glacier-bottom is rarely so soft — for a glacier, though 
 it acts slowly by friction, can act vigorously by 
 dead-weight on a soft rock, and (with fall previously 
 provided for it) can clear masses of that out of the 
 way, to some purpose. There is a notable instance 
 of this in the rock of which your correspondent 
 speaks, under the Glacier des Bois. His idea, that
 
 1864] CONCERNING GLACIERS. 263 
 
 the glacier is deep above and thins out below, is 
 a curious instance of the misconception of glacier 
 nature, from which all that Forbes has done cannot 
 yet quite clear the public mind, nor even the geo- 
 logical mind. A glacier never, in a large sense, 
 thins out at all as it expires. It flows level every- 
 where for its own part, and never slopes but down 
 a slope, as a rapid in water. Pour out a pot of the 
 thickest old white candied, but still fluent, honey 
 you can buy, over a heap of stones, arranged as you 
 like, to imitate rocks.* Whatever the honey does on 
 a small scale, the glacier does on a large ; and you 
 may thus study the glacial phenomena of current — 
 though, of course, not those of structure or fissure 
 — at your ease. But note this specially : — when 
 the honey is at last at rest, in whatever form it has 
 taken, you will see it terminates in tongues with 
 low rounded edges. The possible height of these 
 edges, in any fluid, varies as its viscosity ; it is some 
 quarter of inch or so in water on dry ground ; the 
 most fluent ice will stand at about a hundred feet. 
 Next, from this outer edge of the stagnant honey, 
 delicately skim or thin off a little at the top, and 
 see what it will do. It will not stand in an inclined 
 plane, but fill itself up again to a level from behind. 
 Glacier ice does exactly the same thing ; and this 
 
 * See 'Deucalion,' vol. i. p. 93.
 
 264 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1864 
 
 filling in from behind is done so subtly and deli- 
 cately, that, every winter, the whole glacier surface 
 rises to replace the summer's waste, not with pro- 
 gressive wave, as "twice a day the Severn fills;" 
 but with silent, level insurrection, as of ocean-tide, 
 the gray sea-crystal passes by. And all the struc- 
 tural phenomena of the ice are modified by this 
 mysterious action. 
 
 Your correspondent is also not aware that the 
 Glacier des Bois gives a very practical and outspoken 
 proof of its shallowness opposite the Montanvert, 
 Very often its torrent, under wilful touch of Lucina- 
 sceptre, leaps to the light at the top of the rocks 
 instead of their base.* That fiery Arveron, some- 
 times, hearing from reconnoitering streamlets of a 
 nearer way down to the valley than the rounded 
 ice-curve under the Chapeau, fairly takes bit in 
 teeth, and flings itself out over the brow of the 
 rocks, and down a ravine in them, in the wildest 
 cataract of white thunder-clouds (endless in thunder, 
 and with quiet fragments of rainbow for lightning,) 
 that I have ever blinded myself in the skirts of. 
 
 These bare rocks, over which the main river 
 
 * There twice a day the Severn fills ; 
 The salt sea-water passes by, 
 And hushes half the babbling Wye, 
 And makes a silence in the hills. 
 
 Tennyson, ' In Memoriam,' xix.
 
 1864] CONCERNING GLACIERS. 265 
 
 sometimes falls (and outlying streamlets always) are 
 of firm-grained, massively rounded gneiss. Above 
 them, I have no doubt, once extended the upper 
 covering of fibrous and amianthoidal schist, which 
 forms the greater part of the south-eastern flank 
 of the valley of Chamouni. The schistose gneiss 
 is continuous in direction of bed, with the harder 
 gneiss below. But the outer portion is soft, the 
 inner hard, and more granitic. This outer portion 
 the descending glaciers have always stripped right 
 off down to the hard gneiss below, and in places, as 
 immediately above the Montanvert (and elsewhere 
 at the brows of the valley), the beds of schistose 
 gneiss are crushed and bent outwards in a mass, 
 (I believe) by the weight of the old glacier, for 
 some fifty feet within their surface. This looks 
 like work ; and work of this sort, when it had to be 
 done, the glaciers were well up to, bearing down 
 such soft masses as a strong man bends a poplar 
 sapling ; but by steady push far more than by 
 friction. You may bend or break your sapling 
 with bare hands, but try to rub its bark off with 
 your bare hands ! 
 
 When once the ice, with strength always dependent 
 on pre-existent precipice, has cleared such obstacles 
 out of its way, and made its bed to its liking, there 
 is an end to its manifest and effectively sculptural
 
 266 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1864 
 
 power, I do not believe the Glacier des Bois has 
 done more against some of the granite surfaces 
 beneath it, for these four thousand years, than the 
 drifts of desert sand have done on Sinai. Be that 
 as it may, its power of excavation on a level 
 is proved, as I showed in my last letter, to be 
 zero. Your correspondent thinks the glacier power 
 vanishes towards the extremity ; but as long as 
 the ice exists, it has the same progressive energy, 
 and, indeed, sometimes, with the quite terminal nose 
 of it, will plough a -piece of ground scientifically 
 enough ; but it never digs a hole : the stream 
 always comes from under it full speed downhill. 
 Now, whatever the dimensions of a glacier, if it 
 dug a big hole, like the Lake of Geneva, when it 
 was big, it would dig a little hole when it was 
 little — (not that this is ahvays safe logic, for a 
 little stone will dig in a glacier, and a large one 
 build ; but it is safe within general limits) — which 
 it never does, nor can, but subsides gladly into any 
 hole prepared for it in a quite placid manner, for 
 all its fierce looks. 
 
 I find it difficult to stop, for your correspondent, 
 little as he thinks it, has put me on my own ground. 
 I was forced to write upon Art by an accident (the 
 public abuse of Turner) when I was two-and-twenty ; 
 but I had written a "Mineralogical Dictionary" as
 
 i864] CONCERNING GLACIERS. 267 
 
 far as C, and invented a shorthand symboh'sm for 
 crystalHne forms, before I was fourteen : and have 
 been at stony work ever since, as I could find 
 time, silently, not caring to speak much till the 
 chemists had given me more help * For, indeed, I 
 strive, as far as may be, not to speak of anything 
 till I know it ; and in that matter of Political 
 Economy also (though forced in like manner to 
 write of that by unendurable circumfluent fallacy), 
 I know my ground ; and if your present corre- 
 spondent, or any other, will meet me fairly, I will 
 give them uttermost satisfaction upon any point 
 they doubt. There is free challenge : and in the 
 knight of Snowdoun's vows (looking first carefully 
 to see that the rock be not a glacier boulder), 
 
 "This rock shall fly 
 From its firm base, as soon as I ." 
 
 J. RUSKIN.t 
 
 • * See 'Deucalion,' vol. i. p. 3 (Introduction). 
 
 f Following this letter in the same number of the Readei- was one 
 from the well-known geologist Mr. Joseph Beete Jukes, F.R.S., who, 
 writing from " Selly Oak, Birmingham, Nov. 22," described as "the 
 originator of the discussion." He therefore was no doubt the author 
 of the article in the Reader alluded to above (p. 255, note). Mr. Jukes 
 died in 1869.
 
 268 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1864 
 
 From 'The Reader,' December 3, 1864. 
 
 ENGLISH VERSUS ALPINE GEOLOGY. 
 
 Denmark Hill, 29//? Nov. 
 I scarcely know what reply to make, or whether 
 it is necessary to reply at all, to the letter of 
 Mr. Jukes in your last number. There is no 
 antagonism between his views and mine, though 
 he seems heartily to desire that there should be, 
 and with no conceivable motive but to obtain 
 some appearance of it suppresses the latter half of 
 the sentence he quotes from my letter.* It is true 
 that he writes in willing ignorance of the Alps, 
 and I in unwilling ignorance of the Wicklow hills ; 
 but the only consequent discrepancy of thought 
 or of impression between us is, that Mr. Jukes, 
 examining (by his own account) very old hills, which 
 have been all but washed away to nothing, natu- 
 rally, and rightly, attributes their present form, or 
 want of form, to their prolonged ablutions, while 
 I, examining new and lofty hills, of which, though 
 
 * The following is the sentence from Mr. Jukes' letter alluded to : — 
 " Therefore when Mr. Ruskin says that ' the forms of the Alps are quite 
 visibly owing to the action of elevatory, contractile, and expansive 
 forces,' I would entreat him to listen to those who have had their vision 
 corrected by the laborious use of chain and theodolite and protractor 
 for many toilsome years over similar forms."
 
 1864] ENGLISH VERSUS ALPINE GEOLOGY. 269 
 
 much has been carried away, much is still left, as 
 naturally and rightly ascribe a great part of their 
 aspect to the modes of their elevation. The Alp- 
 bred geologist has, however, this advantage, that 
 (especially if he happen at spare times to have 
 been interested in manual arts) he can hardly 
 overlook the effects of denudation on a mountain- 
 chain which sustains Venice on the delta of one 
 of its torrents, and Antwerp on that of another ; 
 but the English geologist, however practised in the 
 detection and measurement of faults filled in by 
 cubes of fluor, may be pardoned for dimly appre- 
 ciating the structure of a district in which a people 
 strong enough to lay the foundation of the liberties 
 of Europe in a single battle,* was educated in a 
 fissure of the Lower Chalk. 
 
 I think, however, that, if Mr. Jukes can succeed 
 in allaying his feverish thirst for battle, he will wish 
 to withdraw the fourth paragraph of his letter,t 
 and, as a general formula, even the scheme which it 
 introduces. That scheme, sufficiently accurate as an 
 expression of one cycle of geological action, contains 
 little more than was known to all leading geologists 
 
 * The Battle of Sempach (?). See the letters on ' The Italian 
 Question,' at the beginning of the second volume. 
 
 f To the effect that ' the form of the ground is the result wholly of 
 denudation.' For the 'scheme,' consisting of ten articles, see the 
 note over-page.
 
 2/0 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1864 
 
 five-and-twenty years ago, when I was working hard 
 under Dr. Buckland at Oxford;* and it is so curiously 
 unworthy of the present state of geological science, 
 that I believe its author, in his calmer moments, 
 will not wish to attach his name to an attempt at 
 generalization at once so narrow, and so audacious. 
 My experience of mountain-form is probably as 
 much more extended than his, as my disposition 
 to generalize respecting it is less ;t and, although 
 indeed the apparent limitation of the statement 
 which he half quotes (probably owing to his 
 general love of denudation) from my last letter, to 
 the chain of the Alps, was intended only to attach 
 to the words " quite visibly," yet, had I myself 
 expanded that statement, I should not have assumed 
 the existence of a sea, to relieve me from the 
 
 * Dr. William Buckland, the geologist, and at one time Dean of 
 Westminster. He died in 1856. See ' Fors Clavigera,' 1873, Letter 34, 
 p. 19. 
 
 f This and the following sentences allude to parts of the above- 
 mentioned scheme. " The whole question," wrote Mr. Jukes, "depends 
 on the relative dates of production of the lithological composition, the 
 petrological structure, and the form of the surface." The scheme then 
 attempts to sketch the " order of the processes which formed these three 
 things," in ten articles, of which the following are specially referred 
 to by Mr. Ruskin. "i. The formation of a gieat series of stratified 
 rocks on the bed of a sea. ... 3. The possible intrusion of great 
 masses of granitic rock " in more or less fluent state ; and 6, 7, 8, 9, 
 which dealt with alternate elevation and depression, of which there 
 might be "even more than one repetition."
 
 1864] ENGLISH VERSUS ALPINE GEOLOGY- 2/1 
 
 difficulty of accounting for the existence of a lake; 
 — I should not have assumed that all mountain- 
 formations of investiture were marine ; nor claimed 
 the possession of a great series of stratified rocks 
 without inquiring where they were to come from. 
 I should not have thought " even more than one" 
 an adequate expression for the possible number of 
 elevations and depressions which may have taken 
 place since the beginning of time on the mountain- 
 chains of the world ; nor thought myself capable of 
 compressing into Ten Articles, or even into Thirty- 
 nine, my conceptions of the working of the Power 
 which led forth the little hills like lambs, while it 
 rent or established the foundations of the earth ; and 
 set their birth-seal on the forehead of each in the 
 infinitudes of aspect and of function which range 
 between the violet-dyed banks of Thames and Seine, 
 and the vexed Fury-Tower of Cotopaxi. 
 
 Not but that large generalizations are, indeed, 
 possible with respect to the diluvial phenomena, 
 among which my antagonist has pursued his — 
 (scarcely amphibious ?) — investigations. The effects 
 of denudation and deposition are unvarying every- 
 where, and have been watched with terror and grati- 
 tude in all ages. In physical mythology they gave 
 tusk to the Graes, claw to the Gorgons, bull's frontlet 
 to the floods of Aufidus and Po. They gave weapons
 
 272 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1864 
 
 to the wars of Titans against Gods, and lifeless seed of 
 life into the hand of Deucalion. Herodotus " rightly 
 spelled " of them, where the lotus rose from the 
 dust of Nile and leaned upon its dew ; Plato rightly 
 dreamed of them in his great vision of the disrobing 
 of the Acropolis to its naked marble ; the keen eye 
 of Horace, half poet's, half farmer's (albeit unaided 
 by theodolite), recognized them alike where the risen 
 brooks of Vallombrosa, amidst the mountain-clamours, 
 tossed their champed shingle to the Etrurian sea, and 
 in the uncoveted wealth of the pastures, 
 
 " Quae Liris quiet a 
 Mordet aqua, taciturnus amnis." * 
 
 But the inner structure of the mountain chains is as 
 varied as their substance ; and to this day, in some of 
 its mightier developments, so little understood, that 
 my Neptunian opponent himself, in his address de- 
 livered at Cambridge in 1862, speaks of an arrange- 
 ment of strata which it is difficult to traverse ten 
 miles of Alpine limestone without finding an example 
 of, as beyond the limits of theoretical imagination.t 
 
 I feel tempted to say more ; but I have at present 
 little time even for useful, and none for wanton, 
 
 * See Herodotus, ii. 92; Plato, Critias, 112; and Horace, Od. i. 31. 
 
 f The address was delivered by Mr. Jukes as President of the 
 Geological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of 
 Science, which met in 1862 at Cambridge. (See the Report of the 
 Association, vol. xx.xii. p. 54.)
 
 1S64] ENGLISH VERSUS ALPINE GEOLOGY. 273 
 
 controversy. Whatever information Mr. Jukes can 
 afford me on these subjects (and I do not doubt 
 he can afford me much), I am ready to receive, 
 not only without need of his entreaty, but with 
 sincere thanks. If he likes to try his powers of 
 sight, " as corrected by the laborious use of the 
 protractor," against mine, I will in humility abide 
 the issue. But at present the question before the 
 house is, as I understand it, simply whether glaciers 
 excavate lake-basins or not. That, in spite of 
 measurement and survey, here or elsewhere, seems 
 to remain a question. May we answer the first, 
 if answerable.'' That determined, I think I might 
 furnish some other grounds of debate in this notable 
 cause of Peebles against Plainstanes, provided that 
 Mr. Jukes will not in future think his seniority 
 gives him the right to answer me with disparage- 
 ment instead of instruction, and will bear with the 
 English " student's " weakness, which induces me, 
 usually, to wish rather to begin by shooting my 
 elephant than end by describing it out of my 
 moral consciousness.* J. RuSKIN. 
 
 * Mr. Jukes' letter had concluded by recommending English geolo- 
 gists to pursue their studies at home, on the ground that "a student, 
 commencing to learn comparative anatomy, does not think it necessary 
 to go to Africa and kill an elephant. " In the following number of the 
 Reader (Dec. 10) Mr. Jukes wrote, in answer to the present letter, that 
 he had not intended to imply any hostility towards Mr. Ruskin, with 
 whose next letter (over-page) the discussion ended, 
 
 VOL. L 18
 
 2 74 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1864 
 
 From 'The Reader,' December 10, 1864. 
 
 CONCERNING HYDROSTATICS. 
 
 Norwich, ^th December. 
 Your pages are not, I presume, intended for the 
 dissemination of the elements of physical science. 
 Your correspondent " M. A. C." has a good wit, 
 and, by purchasing any common treatise on the 
 barometer, may discover the propriety of exercising 
 it on subjects with which he is acquainted. " G. M." 
 deserves more attention, the confusion in his mind 
 between increase of pressure and increase of density 
 being a very common one.* It may be enough to 
 note for him, and for those of your readers whom 
 his letter may have embarrassed, that in any incom- 
 pressible liquid a body of greater specific gravity 
 than the liquid will sink to any depth, because the 
 column which it forms, together with the vertical 
 column of the liquid above it, always exceeds in 
 total weight the column formed by the equal bulk 
 of the liquid at its side, and the vertical column 
 of liquid above that. Deep-sea soundings would 
 be otherwise impossible. " G. M." may find the 
 
 * "M. A. C." wrote 'Concerning Stones,' and dealt — or attempted 
 to deal — with "atmospheric pressure" in addition to the pressure of 
 water alluded to in Mr. Ruskin's letter of November 26. The letter 
 signed " G. M." was entitled 'Mr. Ruskin on Glaciers;' see next 
 note. Both letters appeared in the Reader of December 3, 1864.
 
 1864] CONCERNING HYDROSTATICS. 275 
 
 explanation of the other phenomena to which he 
 alludes in any elementary work on hydrostatics, and 
 will discover on a little reflection that the statement 
 in my last letter * is simply true. Expanded, it is 
 merely that, when we throw a stone into water, we 
 substitute pressure of stone-surface for pressure of 
 water-surface throughout the area of horizontal 
 contact of the stone with the ground, and add 
 the excess of the stone's weight over that of an 
 equal bulk of water. 
 
 It is, however, very difficult for me to understand 
 how any person so totally ignorant of every circum- 
 stance of glacial locality and action, as " G. M." shows 
 himself to be in the paragraph beginning " It is very 
 evident," could have had the courage to write a 
 syllable on the subject. I will waste no time in 
 reply, but will only assure him (with reference to 
 his assertion that I " get rid of the rocks," etc.), 
 that I never desire to get rid of anything but error, 
 and that I should be the last person to desire to 
 
 * Not in the 'last letter,' but in the last but one, — see ante, p. 261, 
 "A stone at the bottom of a stream," etc. The parts of "G. M. 's" 
 letter specially alluded to by Mr. Ruskin are as follows : — 
 
 " It is very evident that the nearer the source of the glacier, the 
 steeper will be the angle at which it advances from above, and the 
 greater its power of excavation. . . . Mr. Ruskin gets rid of the rocks 
 and debris on the under side of the glacier by supposing that they are 
 pressed beyond the range of action in the solid body of the ice ; but 
 there must be a limit to this, however soft the matrix."
 
 2/6 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1864 
 
 get rid of the glacial agency by friction, as I was, 
 I believe, the first to reduce to a diagram the pro- 
 bable stages of its operation on the bases of the 
 higher Alpine aiguilles.* 
 
 Permit me to add, in conclusion, that in future 
 I can take no notice of any letters to which the 
 writers do not think fit to attach their names. 
 There can be no need of initials in scientific dis- 
 cussion, except to shield incompetence or license 
 discourtesy. 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
 * See 'Modern Painters,' Part v., chap. 13, "On the Sculpture of 
 Mountains," vol. iv. p. 174.
 
 1874] JAMES DAVID FORBES. 277 
 
 From ' Rendu's Theory of the Glaciers of Savoy,' Macmillan, 1S-4. 
 JAMES DAVID FORBES: HIS REAL GREATNESS.* 
 
 The incidental passage in " Fors," hastily written, 
 on a contemptible issue, does not in the least 
 indicate my sense of the real position of James 
 Forbes among the men of his day. I have asked 
 his son'sf permission to add a few words expressive 
 of my deeper feelings. 
 
 For indeed it seems to me that all these questions 
 as to priority of ideas or observations are beneath 
 debate among noble persons. What a man like 
 Forbes first noticed, or demonstrated, is of no real 
 moment to his memory. What he was, and how 
 he taught, is of consummate moment. The actuality 
 of his personal power, the sincerity and wasdom of 
 
 * In connection with the question of glacier-motion, Mr. Ruskin's 
 estimate of Professor Forbes and his work is here reprinted from 
 Rendu's 'Glaciers of Savoy' (Macmillan, 1S74), pp. 205 — 207. For a 
 passage on the same subject which was reprinted in the ' Glaciers of 
 Savoy,' in addition to the new matter republished here, and for a 
 statement of the course of glacier-science, and the relation of Forbes 
 to Agassiz, the reader is referred to 'Fors Clavigera,' 1873, Letter 34, 
 pp. 17 — 26. The ' incidental passage ' consists of a review of Professor 
 Tyndall's 'Forms of Water' (London, 1872), and the 'contemptible 
 issue' was that of his position and Forbes' amongst geological dis- 
 coverers. 
 
 f George Forbes, B.A., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the 
 Andersoniau University, Glasgow, and editor of ' The Glaciers of 
 Savoy.'
 
 2/8 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1874 
 
 his constant teaching, need no applause from the 
 love they justly gained, and can sustain no dimi- 
 nution from hostility ; for their proper honour is in 
 their usefulness. To a man of no essential power, 
 the accident of a discovery is apotheosis; to Jiim, 
 the former knowledge of all the sages of earth is 
 as though it were not ; he calls the ants of his own 
 generation round him, to observe how he flourishes 
 in his tiny forceps the grain of sand he has imposed 
 upon Pelion. But from all such vindication of the 
 claims of Forbes to mere discovery, I, his friend, 
 would, for my own part, proudly abstain. I do not 
 in the slightest degree care whether he was the first 
 to see this, or the first to say that, or how many 
 common persons had seen or said as much before. 
 What I rejoice in knowing of him is that he had 
 clear eyes and open heart for all things and deeds 
 appertaining to his life ; that whatever he discerned, 
 was discerned impartially ; what he said, was said 
 securely ; and that in all functions of thought, 
 experiment, or communication, he was sure to be 
 eventually right, and serviceable to mankind, whether 
 out of the treasury of eternal knowledge he brought 
 forth things new or old. 
 
 This is the essential difference between the work 
 of men of true genius and the agitation of tempo- 
 rary and popular power. The first root of their
 
 1874] JAMES DAVID FORBES. 2/9 
 
 usefulness is in subjection of their vanity to their 
 purpose. It is not in calibre or range of intellect 
 that men vitally differ ; every phase of mental 
 character has honourable office ; but the vital differ- 
 ence between the strong and the weak — or let me 
 say rather, between the availing and valueless intelli- 
 gence — is in the relation of the love of self to the 
 love of the subject or occupation. Many an Alpine 
 traveller, many a busy man of science, volubly 
 represent to us their pleasure in the Alps ; but I 
 scarcely recognize one who would not willingly see 
 them all ground down into gravel, on condition of 
 his being the first to exhibit a pebble of it at the 
 Royal Institution. Whereas it may be felt in any 
 single page of Forbes's writing, or De Saussure's, 
 that they love crag and glacier for their own sake's 
 sake ; that they question their secrets in reverent 
 and solemn thirst : not at all that they may com- 
 municate them at breakfast to the readers of the 
 Daily News, — and that, although there were no 
 news, no institutions, no leading articles, no 
 medals, no money, and no mob, in the world, 
 these men would still labour, and be glad, though 
 all their knowledge was to rest with them at 
 last in the silence of the snows, or only to be 
 taught to peasant children sitting in the shade 
 of pines.
 
 2 8o LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1874 
 
 And whatever Forbes did or spoke during his 
 noble Hfe was in this manner patiently and perma- 
 nently true. The passage of his lectures in which 
 he shows the folly of Macaulay's assertion that " The 
 giants of one generation are the pigmies of the 
 next,"* beautiful in itself, is more interesting yet 
 
 * This saying of Macaulay's occurred in an address which, as M.P. 
 for that city, he delivered at the opening of the Edinburgh Philosophical 
 Institution, in 1846 (Nov. 4). Forbes' criticism of it and of the whole 
 address may be found in a lecture introductory to a course on Natural 
 Philosophy, delivered before the University of Edinburgh (Nov. i 
 and 2, 1848), and entitled 'The Danger of Superficial Knowledge'; 
 under which title it was afterwards printed, together with a newspaper 
 report of Macaulay's address (London and Edinburgh, 1849). In the 
 edition of Macaulay's speeches revised by himself, the sentence in 
 question is omitted, though others of a like nature, such as "The 
 profundity of one age is the shallowness of the next," are retained, 
 and the whole argument of the address remains the same. (See 
 Macaulay's Works, 8 vol. ed., Longmans, 1866. Vol. viii. p. 380, 
 ' The Literature of Great Britain.') For a second mention of this saying 
 by Mr. Ruskin, see also ' Remarks addressed to the Mansfield Art 
 Night Class,' 1873, now reprinted in 'A Joy for Ever' (Ruskin's 
 Works, vol. xi. p. 201). 
 
 The following are parts of the passage (extending over some pages) 
 in Forbes' lecture alluded to by Mr. Ruskin : — 
 
 " How false, then, as well as arrogant, is the self-gratulation of those, 
 who, forgetful of the struggles and painful efforts by which knowledge 
 is increased, would place themselves, by virtue of their borrowed 
 acquirements, in the same elevated position with their great teachers — 
 nay, who, perceiving the dimness of light and feebleness of grasp, with 
 which, often at first, great truths have been perceived and held, find 
 food for pride in the superior clearness of their vision and tenacity of their 
 apprehension ! " Then, after quoting some words from Dr. Whewell's 
 ' Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,' vol. ii. p. 525, and after some
 
 1874] JAMES DAVID FORBES. 28 I 
 
 in the indication it gives of the general grasp and 
 melodious tone of Forbes's reverent intellect, as 
 opposed to the discordant insolence of modernism. 
 His mind grew and took colour like an Alpine 
 flower, rooted on rock, and perennial in flower ; 
 while Macaulay's swelled like a puff-ball in an 
 unwholesome pasture, and projected itself far round 
 in deleterious dust. 
 
 I had intended saying a few words more touching 
 the difference in temper, and probity of heart, 
 between Forbes and Agassiz, as manifested in the 
 documents now* laid before the public. And as 
 far as my own feelings are concerned, the death of 
 Agassiz t would not have caused my withholding a 
 word. For in all utterance of blame or praise, I have 
 striven always to be kind to the living — ^just to the 
 
 further remarks, the lecturer thus continued : — "The activity of mind, 
 the earnestness, the struggle after trath, the hopeless perplexity breaking 
 up gradually into the fulness of perfect apprehension, — the dread of 
 error, the victory over the imagination in discarding hypotheses, the 
 sense of weakness and humility arising from repeated disappointments, 
 the yearnings after a fuller revelation, and the sure conviction which 
 attends the final advent of knowledge sought amidst difficulties and 
 disappointments, — these are the lessons and the rewards of the dis- 
 coverers who first put truth within our reach, but of which we who 
 receive it at second-hand can form but a faint and lifeless conception." 
 (See pp. 39 — 41 of ' The Danger of Superficial Knowledge.') 
 
 * In the edition of Rendu's ' Glaciers of Savoy ' already alluded to. 
 
 t Forbes died Dec. 31, 1868; Agassiz in 1873; ^.nd De Saussure 
 in 1845.
 
 2 82 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1874 
 
 dead. But in deference to the wish of the son of 
 Forbes, I keep silence : I willingly leave sentence 
 to be pronounced by time, above their two graves. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
 The following letters,'^' one from Forbes to myself, 
 written ten years ago, and the other from one of 
 his pupils, received by me a few weeks since, must, 
 however, take their due place among the other evi- 
 dence on which such judgment is to be given. 
 
 J. R. 
 
 * The letter from Forbes to Mr. Ruskin (dated December 2, 1864), 
 was presumably elicited by the allusions to Forbes in Mr. Ruskin's 
 letter to the Reader of November 26, 1864 (see ante, pp. 259 and 263). 
 " Advancing years and permanently depressed state of health," ran 
 the letter, "have taken the edge off the bitterness which the injustice I 
 have experienced caused me during many years. But . . . the old fire 
 revives within me when I see any one willing and courageous, like 
 you, to remember an old friend, and to show that you do so." — The 
 second letter speaks of the writer's ^^ boyish enthusiasm,'''' for Agassiz, 
 an expression to which Mr. Ruskin appends this note : — " 'I he italics 
 are mine. I think this incidental and naive proof of the way in which 
 Forbes had spoken of Agassiz to his class, of the greatest value and 
 beautiful interest. — ^J. R."
 
 1S44] REFLECTIONS IN WATER. 283 
 
 II. 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 From 'The Artist and Amateur's Magazine,' (edited by 
 E. V. Rippingille,) February 1844, pp. 314 — 319. 
 
 REFLECTIONS IN WATER.* 
 [To the Editor of '■The Artist and Amateur'' s Magazine'^ 
 
 Sir, — The phenomena of Kght and shade, rendered 
 to the eye by the surface or substance of water, are 
 so intricate and so multitudinous, that had I wished 
 fully to investigate, or even fully to state them, a 
 volume instead of a page would have been required 
 for the task. In the paragraphs t which I devoted 
 
 * In the first edition of ' Modern Painters ' (vol. i. p. 330) it was 
 stated that " the horizontal lines cast by clouds upon the sea are not 
 shadows, but reflections"; and that " on clear water near the eye there 
 can never be even the appearance of shadow." This statement being 
 questioned in a letter to the Art Union Journal (November 1843), and 
 that letter being itself criticised in a review of ' Modern Painters ' in 
 the Artist and Amateur s Magazine, p. 262 (December 1843), there 
 appeared in the last-named periodical two letters upon the subject, of 
 which one was from J. H. Maw, the correspondent of the Art Union, 
 and the other — that reprinted here — a reply from " The Author of 
 ' Modern Painters.' " 
 
 •)• The passages in ' Modern Painters ' referred to in this letter were 
 considerably altered and enlarged in later editions of the work, and the 
 exact words quoted are not to be found in it as finally revised. The 
 reader is however referred to Vol. i., Part ii., § v., chap. i. ' Of W^ater 
 as painted by the Ancients,' in whatever edition of the book he may 
 chance to meet with or possess.
 
 284 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1844 
 
 to the subject I expressed, as briefly as possible, 
 the laws which are of most general application — 
 with which artists are indeed so universally familiar, 
 that I conceived it altogether unnecessary to prove 
 or support them : but since I have expressed them 
 in as few words as possible, I cannot afford to have 
 any of those words missed or disregarded ; and 
 therefore when I say that on clear water, near the 
 eye, there is no shadow, I must not be understood 
 to mean "that on muddy water, far from the eye, 
 there is no shadow. As, however, your corre- 
 spondent appears to deny my position in toto, and 
 as many persons, on their first glance at the subject, 
 might be inclined to do the same, you will perhaps 
 excuse me for occupying a page or two with a more 
 explicit statement, both of facts and principles, than 
 my limits admitted in the " Modern Painters." 
 
 First, for the experimental proof of my assertion 
 that " on clear water, near the eye, there is no 
 shadow." Your correspondent's trial with the tub 
 is somewhat cumbrous and inconvenient ;* a far 
 
 * See the Artist and Amatetir's Magazine, p. 313, where the author 
 of the letter, to which this is a I'eply, adduced in support of his views 
 the following experiment, viz. : to put a tub filled with clear water in 
 the sunlight, and then taking an opaque screen with a hole cut in it, to 
 place the same in such a position as to intercept the light falling upon 
 the tub. Then, he argued, cover the hole over, and the tub will be in 
 shadow ; uncover it again, and a patch of light will fall on the water, 
 proving that water is not * insusceptible of light as well as shadow.' 
 
 I
 
 1844] REFLECTIONS IN WATER. 285 
 
 more simple experiment will settle the matter. Fill 
 a tumbler with water ; throw into it a narrow strip 
 of white paper ; put the tumbler into sunshine ; 
 dip your finger into the water between the paper 
 and the sun, so as to throw a shadow across the 
 paper and on the water. The shadow will of course 
 be distinct on the paper, but on the water absolutely 
 and totally invisible. 
 
 This simple trial of the fact, and your explanation 
 of the principle given in your ninth Number,* are 
 sufficient proof and explanation of my assertion ; 
 and if your correspondent requires authority as well 
 as ocular demonstration, he has only to ask Stanfield 
 or Copley Fielding, or any other good painter of 
 sea : the latter, indeed, was the person who first 
 pointed out the fact to me when a boy. What then, 
 it remains to be determined, are those lights and 
 shades on the sea, which, for the sake of clearness, 
 and because they appear such to the ordinary 
 observer, I have spoken of as " horizontal lines," and 
 which have every appearance of being cast by the 
 clouds like real shadows ? I imagined that I had 
 been sufficiently explicit on this subject both at 
 pages 330 and 363 :f but your correspondent 
 
 * In the review of ' Modern Painters ' mentioned above. 
 
 f Of the first edition of the first volume of ' Modem Painters.' The 
 size of the book (and consequently the paging) was afterwards altered 
 to suit the engravings contained in the last three volumes.
 
 2 86 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1844 
 
 appears to have confused himself by inaccurately- 
 receiving the term shadow as if it meant darkness 
 of any kind ; whereas my second sentence — " every 
 darkness on water is reflection, not shadow," — 
 might have shown him that I used it in its particular 
 sense, as meaning the absence of positive light on a 
 visible surface. Thus, in endeavouring to support 
 his assertion that the shadows on the sea are as 
 distinct as on a grass field, he says that they are so 
 by contrast with the " light reflected from its polished 
 surface ; " thus showing at once that he has been 
 speaking and thinking all along, not of shadow, but 
 of the absence of reflected light — an absence which 
 is no more shadow than the absence of the image of 
 a piece of white paper in a mirror is shadow on the 
 mirror. 
 
 The question, therefore, is one of terms rather 
 than of things ; and before proceeding it will be 
 necessary for me to make your correspondent under- 
 stand thoroughly what is meant by the term shadow 
 as opposed to that of reflection. 
 
 Let us stand on the sea-shore on a cloudless 
 night, with a full moon over the sea, and a swell on 
 the water. Of course a long line of splendour will 
 be seen on the waves under the moon, reaching 
 from the horizon to our very feet. But are those 
 waves between the moon and us actually more
 
 1844] REFLECTIONS IN WATER. 2 8/ 
 
 illuminated than any other part of the sea ? Not 
 one whit. The whole surface of the sea is under 
 the same full light, but the waves between the moon 
 and us are the only ones which are in a position 
 to reflect that light to our eyes. The sea on both 
 sides of that path of light is in perfect darkness — 
 almost black. But is it so from shadow ? Not so, 
 — for there is nothing to intercept the moonlight 
 from it : it is so from position, because it cannot 
 reflect any of the rays which fall on it to our eyes, 
 but reflects instead the dark vault of the night sky. 
 Both the darkness and the light on it, therefore — 
 and they are as violently contrasted as may well 
 be — are nothing but reflections, the whole surface 
 of the water being under one blaze of moonlight, 
 entirely unshaded by any intervening object what- 
 soever.* 
 
 Now, then, we can understand the cause of the 
 chiaro-scuro of the sea by daylight with lateral sun. 
 Where the sunlight reaches the water, every ripple, 
 wave, or swell reflects to the eye from some of its 
 planes either the image of the sun or some portion 
 of the neighbouring bright sky. Where the cloud 
 interposes between the sun and sea, all these luminous 
 
 * It may be worth noting that the optical delusion above explained 
 is described at some length by Mr. Herbert Spencer ('The Study of 
 Sociology, ' p. 191, London, 1874) as one of the commonest instances 
 of popular ignorance.
 
 2 88 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1844 
 
 reflections are prevented, and the raised planes of 
 the waves reflect only the dark under-surface of the 
 cloud ; and hence, by the multiplication of the 
 images, spaces of light and shade are produced, 
 which lie on the sea precisely in the position of real 
 or positive lights and shadows — corresponding to the 
 outlines of the clouds — laterally cast, and therefore 
 seen in addition to, and at the same time with, the 
 ordinary or direct reflection, vigorously contrasted, 
 the lights being often a blaze of gold, and the 
 shadows a dark leaden grey ; and yet, I repeat, they 
 are no more real lights, or real shadows, on the 
 sea, than the image of a black coat is a shadow 
 on a mirror, or the image of white paper a light 
 upon it. 
 
 Are there, then, no shadows whatsoever upon the 
 sea .'' Not so. My assertion is simply that there 
 are none on clear water near the eye. I shall briefly 
 state a few of the circumstances which give rise to 
 real shadow in distant effect. 
 
 I. Any admixture of opaque colouring matter, as 
 of mud, chalk, or powdered granite, renders water 
 capable of distinct shadow, which is cast on the 
 earthy and solid particles suspended in the liquid. 
 None of the seas on our south-eastern coast are so 
 clear as to be absolutely incapable of shade ; and 
 the faint tint, though scarcely perceptible to a near 
 
 I
 
 1844] REFLECTIONS IN WATER. 289 
 
 observer,* is sufificiently manifest when seen in large 
 extent from a distance, especially when contrasted, 
 as your correspondent says, with reflected lights. 
 This was one reason for my introducing the words 
 — " near the eye." 
 
 There is, however, a peculiarity in the appearances 
 of such shadows which requires especial notice. It 
 is not merely the transparency of water, but its 
 polished surface, and consequent reflective power, 
 which render it incapable of shadow. A perfectly 
 opaque body, if its power of reflection be perfect, 
 receives no shadow (this I shall presently prove) ; 
 and therefore, in any lustrous body, the incapability 
 of shadow is in proportion to the power of reflection 
 Now the power of reflection in water varies with the 
 angle of the impinging ray, being of course greatest 
 when that angle is least : and thus, when we look 
 along the water at a low angle, its power of reflection 
 maintains its incapability of shadow to a considerable 
 extent, in spite of its containing suspended opaque 
 matter ; whereas, when we look doivn upon water 
 from a height, as we then receive from it only 
 rays which have fallen on it at a large angle, a 
 
 * Of course, if water be perfectly foul, like that of the 
 Rhine or Arve, it receives a shadow nearly as well as mud. 
 Yet the succeeding observations on its reflective power are 
 applicable to it, even in this state. 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 ' LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1844 
 
 great number of those rays are unreflected from 
 the surface, but penetrate beneath the surface, 
 and are then reflected* from the suspended opaque 
 matter : thus rendering shadows clearly visible which, 
 at a small angle, would have been altogether un- 
 perceived. 
 
 II. But it is not merely the presence of opaque 
 matter which renders shadows visible on the sea 
 seen from a height. The eye, when elevated above 
 the water, receives rays reflected from the bottom, 
 of which, when near the water, it is insensible. I 
 have seen the bottom at seven fathoms, so that I 
 could count its pebbles, from the cliffs of the Cor- 
 nish coast ; and the broad effect of the light and 
 
 * It must always be remembered that there are two 
 kinds of reflection, — one from polished bodies, giving 
 back rays of light unaltered ; the other from unpolished 
 bodies, giving back rays of light altered. By the one 
 reflection we see the images of other objects on the sur- 
 face of the reflecting object ; by the other we are made 
 aware of that surface itself. The diff"erence between these 
 two kinds of reflection has not been well worked by writers 
 on optics ; but the great distinction between them is, that 
 the rough body reflects most rays when the angle at 
 which the rays impinge is largest, and the polished body 
 when the angle is smallest. It is the reflection from 
 polished bodies exclusively which I usually indicate by 
 the term ; and that from rough bodies I commonly dis- 
 tinguish as " positive light ; " but as I have here used the
 
 1844] REFLECTIONS IN WATER. 29 1 
 
 shade of the bottom is discernible at enormous 
 depths. In fact, it is difficult to say at what depth 
 the rays returned from the bottom become abso- 
 lutely ineffective — perhaps not until we get fairly 
 out into blue water. Hence, with a white or 
 sandy shore, shadows forcible enough to afford 
 conspicuous variety of colour may be seen from 
 a height of two or three hundred feet. 
 
 III. The actual colour of the sea itself is an 
 important cause of shadow in distant effect. Of 
 the ultimate causes of local colour in water I am 
 not ashamed to confess my total ignorance, for I 
 believe Sir David Brewster himself has not eluci- 
 dated them. Every river in Switzerland has a 
 different hue. The lake of Geneva, commonly blue, 
 
 term in its general sense, the explanation of the distinction 
 becomes necessary. All light and shade on matter is 
 caused by reflection of some kind ; and the distinction 
 made throughout this paper between reflected and positive 
 light, and between real and pseudo shadow, is nothing 
 more than the distinction between two kinds of reflection. 
 
 I believe some of Bouguer's* experiments have been 
 rendered inaccurate, — not in their general result, nor in 
 ratio of quantities, but in the quantities themselves, — by 
 the difficulty of distinguishing between the two kinds of 
 reflected rays. 
 
 * Pierre Bouguer, author of, amongst other works, the 'Traite 
 d'Optique sur la Gradation de la Lumiere.' He was born in 1698, 
 and died in 1758.
 
 292 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1844 
 
 appears, under a fresh breeze, striped with blue and 
 bright red ; and the hues of coast-sea are as various 
 as those of a dolphin ; but, whatever be the cause of 
 their variety, their intensity is, of course, dependent 
 on the presence of sun-light. The sea under shade 
 is commonly of a cold grey hue ; in sun-light it is 
 susceptible of vivid and exquisite colouring : and 
 thus the forms of clouds are traced on its surface, 
 not by light and shade, but by variation of colour, — 
 by greys opposed to greens, blues to rose-tints, 
 etc. All such phenomena are chiefly visible from 
 a height and a distance ; and thus furnished me 
 with additional reasons for introducing the words — 
 " near the eye." 
 
 IV. Local colour is, however, the cause of one 
 beautiful kind of chiaro-scuro, visible when we are 
 close to the water — shadows cast, not on the waves, 
 but through them, as through misty air. When a 
 wave is raised so as to let the sun-light through a 
 portion of its body, the contrast of the transparent 
 chrysoprase green of the illuminated parts with the 
 darkness of the shadowed is exquisitely beautiful. 
 
 Hitherto, however, I have been speaking chiefly 
 of the transparency of water as the source of its 
 incapability of shadow. I have still to demonstrate 
 the effect of its polished surface. 
 
 Let your correspondent pour an ounce or two of
 
 1,844] REFLECTIONS IN WATER. 293 
 
 quicksilver into a flat white saucer, and, throwing a 
 strip of white paper into the middle of the mercury, 
 as before into the w^ater, interpose an upright bit of 
 stick between it and the sun : he will then have the 
 pleasure of seeing the shadow of the stick sharply 
 defined on the paper and the edge of the saucer, 
 while on the intermediate portion of mercury it will 
 be totally invisible.* Mercury is a perfectly opaque 
 body, and its incapability of shadow is entirely 
 owing to the perfection of its polished surface. 
 Thus, then, whether water be considered as trans- 
 parent or reflective, (and according to its position 
 it is one or the other, or partially both — for in the 
 exact degree that it is the one, it is not the other,) 
 it is equally incapable of shadow. But as on distant 
 water, so also on near water, when broken, pseudo 
 shadows take place, which are in reality nothing 
 more than the aggregates of reflections. In the 
 illuminated space of the wave, from every plane 
 turned towards the sun there flashes an image of 
 the sun ; in the z^«-illuminated space there is seen 
 on every such plane only the dark image of the 
 interposed body. Every wreath of the foam, every 
 jet of the spray, reflects in the sunlight a thousand 
 diminished suns, and refracts their rays into a 
 thousand colours ; while in the shadowed parts the 
 * The mercury must of course be perfectly clean.
 
 2 94 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1844 
 
 same broken parts of the wave appear only in dead, 
 cold white ; and thus pseudo shadows are caused, 
 occupying the position of real shadows, defined in 
 portions of their edge with equal sharpness : and 
 yet, I repeat, they are no more real shadows than 
 the image of a piece of black cloth is a shadow 
 on a mirror. 
 
 But your correspondent will say, " What does 
 it matter to me, or to the artist, whether they 
 a7'e shadows or not .'' They are darkness, and they 
 supply the place of shadows, and that it is all I 
 contend for." Not so. They do not supply the 
 place of shadows ; they are divided from them by 
 this broad distinction, that while shadow causes 
 uniform deepening of the ground-tint in the objects 
 which it affects, these pseudo shadows are merely 
 portions of that ground-tint itself undeepened, but 
 cut out and rendered conspicuous by flashes of 
 light irregularly disposed around it. The ground- 
 tint both of shadowed and illumined parts is pre- 
 cisely the same — a pure pale grey, catching as it 
 moves the hues of the sky and clouds ; but on 
 this, in the illumined spaces, there fall touches and 
 flashes of intense reflected light, which are absent 
 in the shadow. If, for the sake of illustration, we 
 consider the wave as hung with a certain quantity of 
 lamps, irregularly disposed, the shape and extent of
 
 1844] REFLECTIONS IN WATER. 295 
 
 a shadow on that wave will be marked by the 
 lamps being all put out within its influence, while 
 the tint of the water itself is entirely unaffected 
 by it. 
 
 The works of Stanfield will supply your corre- 
 spondent with perfect and admirable illustrations 
 of this principle. His water-tint is equally clear 
 and luminous whether in sunshine or shade ; but 
 the whole lustre of the illumined parts is attained 
 by bright isolated touches of reflected light. 
 
 The works of Turner will supply us with still 
 more striking examples, especially in cases w^here 
 slanting sunbeams are cast from a low sun along 
 breakers, when the shadows will be found in a state 
 of perpetual transition, now defined for an instant 
 on a mass of foam, then lost in an interval of 
 smooth water, then coming through the body of a 
 transparent wave, then passing off into the air upon 
 the dust of the spray — supplying, as they do in 
 nature, exhaustless combinations of ethereal beauty. 
 From Turner's habit of choosing for his subjects sea 
 much broken with foam, the shadows in his works 
 are more conspicuous than in Stan field's, and may 
 be studied to greater advantage. To the works 
 of these great painters, those of Vandevelde may 
 be opposed for instances of the impossible. The 
 black shadows of this latter painter's near waves
 
 296 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1844 
 
 supply US with innumerable and most illustrative 
 examples of everything which sea shadows are 7iot. 
 
 Finally, let me recommend your correspondent, 
 if he wishes to obtain perfect knowledge of the 
 effects of shadow on water, whether calm or agitated, 
 to go through a systematic examination of the works 
 of Turner. He will find evety phenomenon of this 
 kind noted in them with the most exquisite fidelity. 
 The Alnwick Castle, with the shadow of the bridge 
 cast on the dull surface of the moat, and mixing 
 with the reflection, is the most finished piece of 
 water-painting with which I am acquainted. Some 
 of the recent Venices have afforded exquisite in- 
 stances of the change of colour in water caused 
 by shadow, the illumined water being transparent 
 and green, while in the shade it loses its own 
 colour, and takes the blue of the sky. 
 
 But I have already, sir, occupied far too many of 
 your valuable pages, and I must close the subject, 
 although hundreds of points occur to me which I 
 have not yet illustrated.* The discussion respect- 
 ing the Grotto of Capri is somewhat irrelevant, and 
 
 * Among other points, I have not explained why water, 
 though it has no shadow, has a dark side. The cause of 
 this is the Newtonian law noticed below, that water weakens 
 the rays passing through its mass, though it reflects none ; 
 and, also, that it reflects rays from both surfaces.
 
 1844] REFLECTIONS IN WATER. 297 
 
 I will not enter upon it, as thousands of laws respect- 
 ing light and colour are there brought into play, 
 in addition to the water's incapability of shadow.* 
 But it is somewhat singular that the Newtonian 
 principle, which your correspondent enunciates in 
 conclusion, is the very cause of the incapability of 
 shadow which he disputes. I am not, however, 
 writing a treatise on optics, and therefore can at 
 present do no m^ore than simply explain what the 
 Newtonian law actually signifies, since, by your 
 correspondent's enunciation of it, " pellucid sub- 
 stances reflect light only from their surfaces," an 
 inexperienced reader might be led to conclude that 
 opaque bodies reflected light from something else 
 than their surfaces. 
 
 The law is, that whatever number of rays escape 
 reflection at the surface of water, pass through its 
 body without further reflection, being therein weak- 
 ened, but not reflected ; but that, where they pass 
 out of the water again, as, for instance, if there be 
 air-bubbles at the bottom, giving an under-surface 
 to the water, there a number of rays are reflected 
 from that under-surface, and do not pass out of the 
 
 * The review of 'Modern Painters' had mentioned the Grotto of 
 Capri, near Naples, as 'a veiy beautiful illustration of the great quan- 
 tity of light admitted or contained in water,' and on this Mr. J. W. 
 Maw had commented.
 
 298 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1844 
 
 water, but return to the eye; thus causing the bright 
 luminosity of the under bubbles. Thus water reflects 
 from both its surfaces — it reflects it when passing 
 out as well as when entering ; but it reflects none 
 whatever from its own interior mass. If it did, it 
 would be capable of shadow. 
 
 I have the honour to be. Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient servant, 
 The Author of ' Modern Painters.'
 
 iS6li] REFLECTION OF RAINBOWS IN ^YATER. 299 
 
 From 'The London Review,' May 16, 1861. 
 
 THE REFLECTION jOF RAINBOWS IN W^ATER.* 
 To the Editor of ' The London Review^ 
 
 Sir, — I do not think there is much difficulty in 
 the rainbow business. We cannot see the reflection 
 of the same rainbow which we behold in the sky, 
 but we see the reflection of another invisible one 
 within it. Suppose A and B, fig. i, are two falling 
 raindrops, and the spectator is at S, and X Y is 
 the water surface. If R A S be a sun ray giving, 
 
 R 
 
 Fig-.l. 
 
 we will say, the red ray in the visible rainbow, 
 the ray, B C S, will give the same red ray, reflected 
 from the water at c. 
 
 * The London Rcvird' of ]\Iay 4 contained a critique of the 
 Exhibition of the Society of Water-colours, which inchided a notice 
 of Mr. Duncan's ' Shiplake, on the Thames' (No. 52). In this 
 picture the artist had painted a rainbow reflected in the water, the 
 truth of which to nature was questioned by some of his critics. Mr. 
 Raskin's was not the only letter in support of the picture's truth.
 
 300 
 
 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. 
 
 [1861 
 
 It is rather a long business to examine the lateral 
 angles, and I have not time to do it ; but I presume 
 the result would be that if a m b, fig. 2, be the 
 visible rainbow, and X Y the water horizon, the 
 reflection will be the dotted line c e d, reflecting, 
 that is to say, the invisible bow, end; thus, the 
 terminations of the arcs of the visible and reflected 
 bows do not coincide. 
 
 Fis-.2. 
 
 The interval, m n, depends on the position of the 
 spectator with respect to the water surface. The 
 thing can hardly ever be seen in nature, for if there 
 be rain enough to carry the bow to the water sur- 
 face, that surface will be ruffled by the drops, and 
 incapable of reflection. 
 
 Whenever I have seen a rainbow over water (se?, 
 mostly), it has stood on it reflectionlcss ; but inter-
 
 i86i] REFLECTION OF RAINBOWS IN WATER. 30I 
 
 rupted conditions of rain might be imagined which 
 would present reflection on near surfaces. 
 
 Always very truly yours, 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
 7^/i Rfay, 1 86 1.
 
 302 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1841 
 
 From 'The Proceedings of the Ashmolean Society,' May 10, 1841. 
 
 A LANDSLIP NEAR GIAGNANO. 
 
 " The Secretary read a letter* from J. Ruskin, Esq., 
 of Christ Church, dated Naples, February 7, 1841, 
 and addressed to Dr. Buckland,t giving a description 
 of a recent landslip near that place, which had occa- 
 sioned a great loss of life : it occurred at the village 
 of Giagnano, near Castel-a-mare, on the 22nd of 
 January last. The village is situated on the slope 
 of a conical hill of limestone, not less than 1400 
 feet in height, and composed of thin beds similar 
 to those which form the greater part of the range 
 of Sorrento. The hill in question is nearly isolated, 
 though forming part of the range, the slope of its 
 sides uniform, and inclined at not less than 40°. 
 Assisted by projecting ledges of the beds of rock, 
 a soil has accumulated on this slope three or four 
 feet in depth, rendering it quite smooth and uniform. 
 The higher parts are covered in many places with 
 brushwood, the lower with vines trellised over old 
 mulberry trees. There are slight evidences of recent 
 aqueous action on the sides of the hill, a few gullies 
 descending towards the east side of the village. 
 After two days of heavy rain, on the evening of 
 
 * The present letter is the earliest in date of any in these volumes, 
 f See note to p. 269.
 
 1841] LANDSLIP NExVR GIAGNANO. 
 
 0"-'J 
 
 January 22, a torrent of water burst down on the 
 village to the west of these gullies, and the soil 
 accumulated on the side of the hill gave way in a 
 wedge-shaped mass, the highest point being about 
 600 feet above the houses, and slid down, leaving 
 the rocks perfectly bare. It buried the nearest 
 group of cottages, and remained heaped up in longi- 
 tudinal layers above them, whilst the water ran in 
 torrents over the edge towards the plain, sweeping 
 away many more houses in its course. To the 
 westward of this point another slip took place of 
 smaller dimensions than the first, but coming on a 
 more crowded part of the village, overwhelmed it 
 completely, occasioning the loss of 116 lives."
 
 f 
 
 304 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. [1857 
 
 From 'The Atliena;um,' February 14, 1857. 
 
 THE GENTIAN.* 
 
 Denmark Hill, Feb. 10. 
 If your correspondent ' Y. L. Y.' will take a little 
 trouble in inquiring into the history of the gentian, 
 he will find that, as is the case with most other 
 flowers, there are many species of it. He knows 
 the dark blue gentian {Gentiana acaidis) because 
 it grows, under proper cultivation, as healthily in 
 England as on the Alps. And he has not seen 
 the pale blue gentian {Gentiana verna) shaped like 
 a star, and of the colour of the sky, because that 
 flower grows unwillingly, if at all, except on its 
 native rocks. I consider it, therefore, as specially 
 characteristic of Alpine scenery, while its beauty, to 
 my mind, far exceeds that of the darker species. 
 
 I have, etc., 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
 * 111 the 'Notes on the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House,' 
 1856, (p. 23) Mr. Ruskin speaks of the "pale ineffable azure" of the 
 gentian. The present letter was written in reply to one signed 
 'Y. L. Y.' in the Athenanm of February 7, 1857, in which this ex- 
 pression was criticized. In a subsequent issue of the same journal 
 (February 21) Mr. Ruskin's querist denied the ignorance imputed to 
 him, and still questioned the propriety of calling the gentian 'pale,' 
 without at the same time distinguishing the two species.
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 305 
 
 [Date and place of original publication unlcnown.] 
 
 ON THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
 To Adam White, of Edinburgh. 
 
 It would be pleasing alike to my personal vanity 
 and to the instinct of making myself serviceable, 
 which I will fearlessly say is as strong in me as 
 vanity, if I could think that any letter of mine 
 would be helpful to you in the recommendation of 
 the study of natural history, as one of the best 
 elements of early as of late education. I believe 
 there is no child so dull or so indolent but it may 
 be roused to wholesome exertion by putting some 
 practical and personal work on natural history 
 within its range of daily occupation ; and, once 
 aroused, few pleasures are so innocent, and none 
 so constant. I have often been unable, through 
 sickness or anxiety, to follow my own art \\ork, 
 but I have never found natural history fail me, 
 either as a delight or a medicine. But for chil- 
 dren it must be curtly and wisely taught. We must 
 show them things, not tell them names. A deal 
 chest of drawers is worth many books to them, 
 and a well-guided country walk worth a hundred 
 lectures. 
 
 I heartily wish you, not only for your sake, but 
 VOL. L 20
 
 306 LETTERS ON SCIENCE. 
 
 for that of the young thistle buds of Edinburgh, 
 success in promulgating your views, and putting 
 them in practice. 
 
 Always believe me faithfully yours, 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
 END OF VOLUME L 
 
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