RUSKIN'S MODERN PAINTERS. *
[CONCLUDINO ARTICLE.]
IT would be doing but scant justice to the author of Modern .Painters as a thinker of such earnestness, and a writer gifted with such remarkable expressive faculty, to consider all his work in the spirit of cold criticism. It was necessary to insist upon the fallacy involved in the method of study, which Mr. Ruskin in his enthusiastic admiration for perfect truth would recommend, and that we should point out the futility of such a course in art, by reference to the acknowledged failures of the meat devoted skill, whether applied to nature's realities, or to Turner's creations. We believe that the influence of this eloquent enforcement of a method has drawn away certain conscientious artists, and gone so far as to establish a sect of painters who rejoice in being "the new school," without troubling themselves about the eternal prin- ciples of art. Let us for a moment see what this teaching leads to ? A young artist sets himself to paint faithfully a Stone- breaker ; if he merely meant to touch us with the story of some worthy man who had seen better days, now reduced to this hope- less degradation of dependence, the intention would be good, and we might give a sincere word of praise to a figure painted with all the truth of the Dutch school, and evincing the superior quality—sentiment. But if the same delicacy of touch, and the ;fame devotion, were exhibited in every fragment of the heap of stones, we should feel the sort of pity we bestow upon the efforts of the Chinese artist. Or, supposing an accomplished painter were to be observed seated upon a rock with the Val d'Aosta before him, copying upon a canvass the size of his sketchbook, the atoms which compose that stupendous mountain scene ; one might be excused for calling this a humiliating treatment of a sublime subject—we might think it a vulgar estimate. of nature's beauties showing, as Mr. Ruskin so well says of vulgarity, "an inability to feel or conceive noble character or emotion." We are quite mistaken ; this artist is full of profound meaning. He is asked by Mr. Ruskin "what is vulgarity ? " He thinks deeply, then replies, "it is merely one of the forms of death ! " The interpre- tation of this aphorism of the painter of the Val d'Aosta, we must leave to Mr. Ruskin's most entertaining chapter on " Vulgarity ; " it is enough for our purpose to show the mysticism and exclusive- ness not to say asceticism of art, to which these doctrines lead.
It is when Mr. Ruskin enters upon the higher walks of his sub- ]ect that we go with him. We can gaze while he directs us like some Eastern magus into his "dark mirror," and listen with real sympathy while he says "all the purposes of good which we saw that the beauty of nature could accomplish, may be better fulfilled by the meanest of her realities, than by the brightest of
bastions As suggestive of supernatural power, the pas- sing away of a fitful ramoloud, or opening of dawn, are in their ehange and mystery more pregnant than any pictures. A child Would, I suppose, receive a religious lesson from a flower more willingly than from a print of one, and might be taught to under- stand the 19th Psalm, on a starry night, better than by diagrams of the constellations Whence it might seem a waste of time to draw landscape at all. I believe it is ; to draw landscape mere and solitary, however beautiful (unless it be for the sake of geo- graphical science or historical record.) "But there is a kind of landscape which it is not inexpedient to draw. What kind we may probably discover by considering that which mankind has hitherto contented itself with pointing." Mr. Ruskin then pro- . Modern Paititers. By John RusIdn M.A.* Volume V. (completing the Work.) Published by Smith, Elder, and weds to classify landscape-painting into Heroic, representing an imaginary world inhabited by noble people subjected to trials by spiritual powers of the highest order ; its master, Titian. Mus- cat, inhabited by perfectly civilized men and by spiritual powers of an inferior order, assuming this to have been the condition among the Greeks and Romans ; its master is Niccolo Poussin. Pastoral, peasant life, without _anything supernatural ; its master, Cuyp. Contemplative, observant of the powers of nature and recording his- torical associations connected with landscape ; no supernatural 'being is visibly present. Recently developed into completeness ; and its master, Turner. These, it is explained, are not quite satisfactory, and it was originally intended to call the four 'wheels Romantic, Classic, Georgic and Theoretic. Two supplementary or spurious form are named—Picturesque, to include much modern and Dutch art, will the works of Canaletto, Guardi, Tempesta and the like ; while Hybrid is the term applied by Mr. Ruskin to works which partake of the characteristics of two classes, as those of Berghem and Wouvermans. The author then Bays, after his fa- vourite maxim of human interest, "all true landscape, whether simple or exalted, depends primarily for its interest on con- nexion with humanity or with spiritual powers. Banish your heroes and nymphs from the classical lands2ape—its laurel shades. will move you no more. Show that the dark clefts of the most romantic mountain are uninhabited and untraversed ; it will cease to be romantic. Fields, without shepherds and fairies, will have no gaiety in their green, nor will the noblest masses of ground or colours of cloud arrest or raise your thoughts, if the earth has no life to sustain, and the heaven none to refresh." This is partly true, but it is a one-sided view, shutting out altogether certain influences which we cannot profess to explain, however we may feel them ; as for example the imposing effect of some vast. solitude, where no human foot ever trod. A grand mountain ra- vine, or a primeval forest of America, it seems to us, might be called a romantic solitude. Another sense there is too through which we are affected, and thatis in beholding the mere physical harmonies of nature—the azure vault of the sky, the endless beauty of moun- tain forms, the effects of light and shade, the gorgeous colours of sunset, the brilliant flowers, and the picturesque composition of all scenery which the eye naturally adopts. All these impress us with delight, apart from any knowledge we may possess of the physiology of the universe. It is, indeed, a sense of pleasure happily not denied to very humble capacities ; and it is this sense which is gratified so highly by pictorial art, because here the artist selects and combines directed by his cultivated eye, and we receive by our cultivated taste. We should not be disposed to, quarrel with Mr. Ruskin for not being consistent, for consistency is only too often a shield for the timid upholders of a blind and, ignorant belief, but we could support our argument in favour of formal beauty from the author's own enunciation of his law of helps The first element of pictorial beauty is "invention formal, other, wise called technical composition, that is to say the arrangement of lines, forms, and colours, so as to produce the best possible effect." Whether there are any true rules or laws for this, or whether, as Mr. Ruskin asserts, a picture well composed is done without rule, he is constrained to admit that there are certain elementary laws of arrangement. He says then, "in work which is not composed there may be many beautiful things, but they do not help each other"—" in true composition, not a line nor spark of colour but is doing its best." The difference between pictorial composition and this " help " is one only of name ; the two things are, we submit, the same, and though one painter may certainly have a gift for composing, we can see no reason for calling, as Mr. Ruskin would, a weaker brother's work false, corrupt, and ignoble. The idea, of course, is to treat of a picture as we saw of the tree, as so many boughs, twigs, and leaves helping one another to oppose fate ; in the picture it becomes so many lines, forms, and colours conspiring to oppose and preclude ugliness. As an arti- fice of expression, we may speak of "the law of help ; " but if the learning of composition is possible either by rule of thumb or mathematics, as we imagine it is, something more definite might be stated to the student. No one would deny Mr. Ruskin's posi- tion that to talk of creating a watch would be absurd, while we de speak of creating a feeling ; still, the composition of a picture which produces feeling, holds about the same relation to the con- ception of the work as the construction of a watch does to the in- vention of such a machine. In either case, the mere fitting and adjustment of the material is nothing compared with the original design which is equally a creative action in both ; and without the actual construction which must necessarily be formal and regular, what becomes of invention ? In the chapter called "The Task of the Least," we read in reference to composition, "much fine formative arrangement depends on a more or less elliptical or pear- shaped balance of the group obtained by arranging the principal members of it on two oppositecurves." Some examples from Titian, Veronese, and Turner are referred to in illustration, particularly the Europa and Turner's " Lauffenburg," in the Tiber studiorum. There is something more practical in this ; and, perhaps, had Mr. Ruskin felt himself able to expound the laws of pictorial arrange- ment, he would not have left the subject with the expression of regret that it can no more be explained than melody in music. _ The chapter headed, "The Rule of the Greatest," seems to us quite incompatible with much that was inculcated in the former volumes. Speaking of the modern pathetic school, he says, .1 was surprised at the first rise of that school, now some years ago, by observing how they restrained themselves to subjects which, in other hands, would have been wholly uninteresting ; and in these
succeeding efforts I saw, with increasing wonder, that they were almost destitute of the power of feeling vastness, or enjoying the forms which expressed it. A mountain or great building only ap- peared to them as a piece of colour of a certain shape. In general, Qey avoided subjects expressing space or mass, and fastened on confined, broken, and, sharp forms, liking furze, ferns, reeds, straw, stubble, dead leaves, and such like, better than strong stones, broad flowing leaves or rounded hills ; in all such greater things, when forced to paint them, they missed the main and mighty lines." With this school, for the rise of which Mr. Ruskin is, as we think, in some measure responsible, he contrasts the great com- posers, of whom he says, "they reap and thrash in the sheaf, never pluck ears to rub in the hand ; fish 'with net not line, and sweep their prey together within great cords of errorless curve. To them, it is not merely the surface nor the substance of any- thing that is of import.' Nervous words these, and admirably followed up with a final paragraph which we must give unmuti- lated.
" I do not, however' purpose here to examine or illustrate the nature of great treatment—to do so effectually would need many examples from the figure composers ; and it will be better (if I have time to work out the subject carefully) that I should do so in a form which may be easily ac- cessible to youno. students. Here I will only state in conclusion what it is chiefly important for all students to be convinced of, that all technical qualities by which greatness of treatment is known—such as reserve in colour, tranquillity and largeness of line and refusal of unnecessary objects of interest are, when they are really the exponents of an habitually noble • temper of mind, never the observances of a precept supposed to be useful. The refusal or reserve of a mighty painter cannot be imitated ; it is only by reaching the same intellectual strength that you will be able to give an equal dignity to your self-denial. No one can tell you beforehand what to accept or what to ignore ; only remember always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter will be your manner and the fewer your 'words; and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life, the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim."
The quality of " reserve " in great painters is one that must have struck all thoughtful observers of the grand works of art. The idea of all but infinite power is conveyed by the evidence that the artist has attempted nothing but what he could do with ease and perfectly. It is an-important element in all art, and the sub- ject is one that Mr. Ruskin handles in his unique manner, and with some most interesting details as to Turner's method that we must refer for completeness sake to the book rather than to certain parts only which our space would admit.
The last part of the subject embraces "Invention Spiritual." Throughout, these chapters abound with the most enjoyable read- ing for all lovers of art and its kindred subjects. The tone of :thought which pervades them is essentially that which encourages ,iand nourishes artistic ideas ; fanciful to dreaminess and full of '4egendic and mythological lore, all touched in with a fall brush d the warmest odours. "The Lance of Pallas" is the title of .*e chapter in which Christian art, as it is called, is contrasted -*Rh Greek and. Venetian art, and seldom have we seen the spirit the Greek feeling so thoroughly appreciated and so eloquently portrayed. No painter of the purest religions schools ever mas- tered his art, says Mr. Ruskin, " Perngino nearly did so, but it was because he was more a man of the world than the rest." "The ruling purpose of Greek poetry is the assertion of Victory by heroism, over fate, sin, and death "—Athenafmaylbetray them, Phcebus smite them with plague Jove and all the powers of fate oppress them—yet "no weak tears shall blind us, no untimely terrors abate our strength of arm, our swiftness of limb. The Gods have given us at least this glorious body and this righteous conscience ; so may we fall to misery but not to baseness ; so may we sink to sleep but not to shame." The Christian had been taught a faith which put an end to restless questioning and dis- couragement. "The Venetian was, therefore, less serious than the Greek. In his heart there was none of the deep horror which vexed the soul of fEschylus or Homer. His Pallas shield was the shield of Faith, not the shield of the Gorgon." The Venetian "delivered, to his loss, from all the wholesome labours of tillage was also shut out from the sweet wonders and °halides of the earth and from the pleasant natural history of the year. No swallow chattered at his window nor nested under his golden roofs. No simple joy was possible to him. Only stateliness and power." In this way, one could go on picking out beautiful bits from the "Wings of the Lion"—as the chapter on Venetian art is called— did our limits allow.
Comparative views of Purer and Salvator Rosa, Claude and Poussin, Rnbens and Cuyp, Weuvermans and Angelico, lead the way to a similar comparison between Giorgione and Turner, be- ginning with ' their boyhood and diverging into a very pleasant account of the Hesperides apropos of Turner's picture of the dra- gon—" The Nereid's Guard," which Mr. Ruskin somewhat whim- sically calls an English painter's first great religions picture ! -.4avmg in his symbolic view St. George and the Dragon.
A final chapter, entitled "Peace," utters once more an affection- ate eulogy of Turner ; a little too much overlaid with complaint against the public for not fully appreciating the great man, but affording us a more complete acquaintance with his naturally good disposition. Turner was deoidedly not framed for ingratiating himself with the popular and common regard, although he had a sort of rugged nobleness that constantly led him to do the kindest acts without a care for reward or acknowledgment. We cannot quite agree in Mr. Ruskin's rather embittered charge of public ingratitude to the greatest of our landscape-painters. We believe he was always so esteemed, and it was only the few smart ephe- meral critics, that delight to flit in the sunbeam of their little hour, atPaivalinte er st 'so lfail who were guilty of making fun of the vet lterathn fancies, and thus only offering up themselves at____
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shrines—popular amusement. The majority 01t h remembered well those great achievements which L aav ienk flow by the gift of the sufferer himself into a national gt llery of lam ivet itin ppae:si
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scape art, of which we may boast as one quite witha,,,,aut a rivt3
in the world of art. so _
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