E L "Kennel-water," "eructations of idle wind," were among the critical amenities which it bestowed upon the Graduate, with whom, however, it parted on a note of mingled praise and blame. "Never," said the reviewer, "did we see such acuteness and confusedness of mind-such power and impotence-such trains of error and of truest deductionsuch pure taste and perverted judgment—such high and low feeling for art—we must add, such an elevated and vulgarian spirit of criticism— evinced in any treatise pretending to legislate upon Esthetics." Another review, barely less unfavourable, appeared in the Daily News (June 22, 1846), which found in the volume "child's play and fiddlefaddle," "subserviency of thoughts to words," and "high-sounding and somewhat lengthy and involved periods." The writer acknowledged that "the volume is evidently the work of a man of no ordinary talent and elevation of sentiment"; but he made a somewhat unlucky shot in adding that the Graduate "must first learn to see with his own eyes; at present he sees pictures and everything else through the medium of books." 1 The volume which was thus received is in style, no less than in contents, different from its predecessor. The manner at which Ruskin aimed in the second volume is described in the letter to Liddell of October 1844.2 He sought to eschew "the pamphleteer manner," and to attain a more "serious, quiet, earnest and simple manner." "The calmer tone of the second volume . . . resulted," he afterwards said, "from the simple fact that the first was written in great haste and indignation, for a special purpose and time;-the second, after I had got engaged, almost unawares, in inquiries which could not be hastily nor indignantly pursued." He was now dealing with arguments of high philosophy, and he sought elevation and dignity of language. In theory he was opposed to any tricks of style which departed from simplicity; he explains his point of view in a letter here printed in an Appendix.* In practice, however, he fell into some mannerisms—afterwards exposed unmercifully by himself. He had been sent to Hooker by his old tutor, Osborne Gordon, and imitation led him into affectations,-" in the notion,” as he elsewhere says, "of returning as far as I could to what I 3 1 Ruskin's father refers to this review in a letter to W. H. Harrison (Genoa, July 14, 1846): "I see C. Dickens's paper has a shot at M. P., vol. 2. There are heavier shots than this likely to come. The Utilitarians and Jesters must have a kick at their opponent at any rate." Dickens had by this time resigned the editorship to John Forster. 2 See Vol. III. p. 668. 3 Stones of Venice, vol. i. Appendix 11. 4 See Appendix iii., p. 390. 5 See, e.g., notes on pp. 50, 93, 94, 111. thought the better style of old English literature." The second volume contains throughout high thought wedded to stately language; it includes many purple passages which are favourites in books of selections; and it sustains, hardly with a break, a note of dignity. But probably Ruskin's own verdict is likely to stand: the style of the second volume is too selfconscious; it was an experiment rather than a development; "it was not,” he says, "my proper style."2 In subject-matter this volume of Modern Painters, though marred by some faults-by no one more mercilessly exposed than by the author himself in his notes to the revised edition of 1883-occupies a central place in Ruskin's system. It sets forth the spiritual as opposed to the sensual theory of art. It expresses what he elsewhere calls "the first and foundational law respecting human contemplation of the natural phenomena under whose influence we exist, that they can only be seen with their properly belonging joy, and interpreted up to the measure of proper human intelligence, where they are accepted as the work and the gift of a Living Spirit greater than our own." The book, as he states, had two objects. First, to "explain the nature of that quality of beauty which I now saw to exist through all the happy conditions of living organism”—to explain its nature, and to explain also the theoretic faculty of Admiration by which ✓ it may be apprehended. And, secondly, to explain the school of Angelico at Florence, and of Tintoret at Venice. Its effect in this latter respect, which alone can be measured with any precision, was sure and speedy. It turned the taste of the age to the primitives. The acquisition for the National Gallery of many early Italian pictures—a policy which Ruskin advocated strenuously in a letter to the Times in 1847-is an illustration of this conversion of taste and interest. The foundation and work of the Arundel Society are another. Of this Society, established in 1849 and dissolved in 1897, Ruskin was from the first a member of the Council, other members being his friends Liddell, Newton, and Oldfield. The original prospectus of the Society, after referring to the importance of meeting a revived interest in art by suitable instruction, remarks-as if in echo of passages of this volume-that "the materials for such instruction are abundant, but scattered, little accessible, and, in some instances, passing away. Of the frescoes of Giotto, Orcagna, Ghirlandajo, much which has never been delineated, nor even properly described, is rapidly perishing." 1 Sesame and Lilies, 1871, preface, § 1. 2 Love's Meinie, § 130. 3 Deucalion, ii. ch. ii. ("Revision ") § 2. 5 Cf. The Art of England, § 38. See Arrows of the Chace, 1880, i. 62–66 (reprinted in a later volume of this edition). 7 See Præterita, ii. ch. viii. Among the undertakings announced as under consideration was the engraving of many of the works of art mentioned by Ruskin in his second volume—such as "the architecture and sculpture of the Spina Chapel at Pisa" (see p. 39), "the pulpit in S. Andrea at Pistoja" (p. 300), "the frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli in the chapel of the Riccardi Palace at Florence" (p. 320), and "the works of Tintoretto in the Scuola di San Rocco at Venice" (pp. 268, 270, 272, 274). The water-colour copies of works of art made for the Society, and reproduced by it in chromolithography, were on its dissolution presented to the National Gallery. The reader who examines the collection there will see how many of the works to which Ruskin called attention in this volume were selected by the Society for record.1 Nor was the volume less successful in establishing the fame of Tintoret. It has been well pointed out that Ruskin had come to Venice in a right mood to appreciate the sweep and grandeur of Tintoretto's genius. "Fresh from the stormy grandeur of the St. Gothard, he found the lurid skies and looming giants of the Visitation, or the Baptism, or the Crucifixion, reechoing the subjects of Turner as 'deep answering to deep.""2 Between Turner and Tintoret there is, indeed, both spiritual and technical affinity. "Greater imagination, a grander impressionism and conception, and a more burning zeal, rather than a faithful adherence to the traditions of the schools, was Tintoretto's message to the ages." It was the message that Turner also conveyed, and there is reason for thinking that in the mighty Venetian he had recognised a kindred spirit. It was part of Ruskin's mission to reveal the genius of both painters to the modern world. He justly claims, in the Epilogue to this volume and elsewhere, that he disclosed the supremacy of Tintoret, who had fallen almost into neglect R until 5 1 e.g., Fra Angelico's frescoes in S. Marco, and Ghirlandajo's in S. Maria Novella. For Ruskin's testimony to the work of the Society, see Stones of Venice, vol. iii. ch. v. § 6, and Ariadne Florentina, § 244. For it he wrote two monographs-Giotto and his Works in Padua and Monuments of the Cavalli Family. 2 W. G. Collingwood's Life of John Ruskin, 1900, p. 104. Compare Ruskin's letter to Burne-Jones below, p. 356. 3 J. B. Stoughton Holborn's Tintoretto, 1903, p. 90. "Samuel Rogers used to tell the following story. He was on his way to Italy immediately after the peace that followed the downfall of Napoleon, and he met several artists returning from that country. The first was Sir Thomas Lawrence, and Rogers put the question to him, 'What do you think the finest picture you have seen in Italy?' After slight hesitation, he replied, The Miracle of St. Mark, by Tintoretto.' Rogers then said, 'The next painter I met was Turner, and I put the same question to him. Without a moment's hesitation he said, "Tintoretto (Reminiscences of Frederick Goodall, R.A., 1902, p. 37)] Epilogue, § 13, p. 355; Præterita, i. ch. ix. §§ 183-184; Fors Clavigera, Letters 61 and 67. That is, among critics and the general public. That artists appreciated Tintoret we have already seen. The following tribute by Etty may be added. Writing this volume and the third of The Stones of Venice were published. In this respect, as also in winning better recognition for the school of Fra Angelico, the second volume of Modern Painters assuredly did not miss its mark. Ruskin refers in The Stones of Venice-with "astonishment and indignation"-to the notice of Tintoret in Kugler's Handbook of Painting, then and for many years to come the recognised authority in such matters. The note added to later editions of the Handbook is significant of the efficacy of Ruskin's championship: "The remarks in the text upon Tintoretto have been retained, although they do scant justice to that great master, whose works are now better known and more fully understood and appreciated in England, principally through the eloquent writings of Mr. Ruskin. It may be asserted with confidence that no painter has excelled him in nobility and grandeur of conception, and few in poetic intention.” 2 To like effect testifies Mr. W. M. Rossetti : "The writer who has done by far the most to establish the fame of Tintoret at the height which it ought to occupy is Professor Ruskin in his Stones of Venice and other books; the depth and scope of the master's power had never before been adequately brought out, although his extraordinary and somewhat arbitrarily used executive gift was acknowledged." 3 Mr. Charles Eliot Norton has well said that the chapters in this volume on Imagination, with their "illustrations of the theme drawn. from the works . . . of Tintoret, the artist endowed above all others with imaginative power," . . . "form an unrivalled text-book for the student of the nobler qualities of the art. This section of the book,” he adds, "in its setting forth of the function of the imaginative faculty in pictorial art, may well be compared with Wordsworth's Prefaces in their study of the same faculty as displayed in poetry. Wordsworth's and Ruskin's treatises are mutually complementary; and they afford a body of doctrine admirably fitted to enlighten, enlarge, and elevate the understanding of to Lawrence from Venice in 1823, he says: "You, I am sure, must have been much struck with the Tintorets here; in the Academy, Ducal Palace, etc.; his Last Judgment, Crucifixion, small St. Agnes. What a glorious group that is we see at the foot of the Cross! Really, for composition, for pathos, appropriate and harmonious combination of hues, and great executive power, I have never seen it excelled, rarely equalled. The poetry of his Last Judgment, the hues, the teeming richness of composition,-figures whirled in all possibilities of action and foreshortening,-excite astonishment at his powers that does not easily subside" (Alexander Gilchrist's Life of Etty, i. 169). 1 Introductory remarks to Venetian Index. 2 Fifth edition, 1887, ii. p. 612. 3 Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., xx. p. 611. 4 See below, p. 299, where Ruskin himself refers to Wordsworth's Preface. the reader in its appreciation of the work and worth of the most precious and loftiest of human powers. "1 To trace the effect of the volume in what was to Ruskin its main purpose and function—namely, its theory of the spiritual quality of beauty-admits of no such precise measurement. Like the first volume, it influenced deeply many of the best minds of the day. It preached the dignity of art,3 and in doing so it struck many a responsive chord in artists of high purpose, and-like the many other utterances from the same pen which succeeded it-contributed something to elevate the standards of production and taste. But other ideas and ideals of art arose in later days, and Ruskin came to doubt whether the theory of its spiritual quality and function had left much mark upon the world. 4 Ruskin's feelings in this matter must be referred to in some detail, in order to explain the subsequent history of the second volume. This follows in the main that of Modern Painters generally, as already told." The second volume was reprinted in 1848, 1851, 1856, and 1869; it was included, of course, in the new edition of 1873.7 He was averse from the republication of the book, and was especially out of humour with this second volume: He had outgrown its theological standpoint; he was ashamed of its sectarian narrowness; and he was displeased by its affectations of style. Hence, when contemplating a revised series of his 8 1 Introduction to the "Brantwood edition" of the separate issue of Modern Painters, vol. ii., New York, 1891, pp. ix.-x. 2 See Vol. III. pp. xxxvii.-xli. 3 See especially sec. i. ch. i. § 2, p. 26. "There is a passage in the second volume of Modern Painters [sec. i. ch. xv. § 12, p. 217], 'Theoria the Service of Heaven,' which I have chanted to myself in many a lonely lane, and which interprets many thoughts I have had" (Letters of James Smetham, p. 7). The testimony of the leading journal in an article on the day following Ruskin's death, is worth recording in this connection. "He constructed an ideal for the artist as well as an ideal of art. He showed the artistic profession that it has a mission like the pulpit. He inculcated upon it self-respect because its art is worthy of respect. If sometimes he bade the public look in a picture gallery for qualities it had no particular right to seek for there, he obliged it at least to use its eyes and test its judgment. Artists have not been tender in their retorts upon their critic. They may be excused for a sense of hurt at his frequent caprices, and at his unmeasured severity. They must not be unmindful that they owe the fuller recognition of their title to public admiration and public patronage in no small degree to the blaze of glory with which his meteoric pen has invested their whole vocation. Every painter has risen in stature by virtue of John Ruskin's vindication of the heights to which English art must, and English artists may, aspire" (Times, Jan. 22, 1900). 6 See Vol. III. pp. xlvi.-1. 7 For particulars of the separate editions, see Bibliographical Note below, p. liii. ; for editions of the complete work, Vol. III. pp. lviii.-lxi. 8 See, e.g., Fors Clavigera, Letter 76, and, in this volume, notes of 1883 on pp. 61, 110, 199. |